“The Last of England” by Ford Madox Brown

“The Last of England” by Ford Madox Brown depicts two emigrants leaving England to start a new life in Australia with their small baby.

The emigrating couple stares stoically ahead, stony-faced, ignoring Dover’s white cliffs, which can be seen disappearing behind them in the top right of the picture.

They are huddled under an umbrella that provides shelter from the sea-spray. The faces of the man and his wife, who are seeing England for the last time, are modeled on the artist, Brown, and his second wife, Emma’s portraits.

In the foreground, a row of cabbages hangs from the ship’s rail, provisions for the long voyage. In the background are other passengers, including a pair of drunken men, one of whom was conceived by Brown as shaking his fist and cursing the land of his birth.

Also, in the background is a family consisting of the father, eldest daughter, and younger children, their mother (like Brown’s first wife) has died, and they are seeking a new beginning.

Portrait of Emma Hill by Ford Madox Brown

The father is barely visible except for the pipe he holds, and his daughter has her arm around a curly red-haired boy. The fair-haired child eating an apple is a portrait of the artist’s first daughter, Catherine.

The woman has a baby concealed under the cloak in the foreground, whose hand she is clasping; this baby symbolized the artist’s second infant child.

The family’s clothing and the bundle of books next to them indicate that they are middle class and educated. Brown composed a short verse to accompany the painting in which the woman is depicted as hopeful for the future:

“She grips his listless hand and clasps her child,
Through rainbow tears, she sees a sunnier gleam,
She cannot see a void where he will be.”

Brown began the painting in 1852, inspired by the departure of his close friend, the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor, Thomas Woolner, who had left for Australia that year. Emigration from England was at over 350,000 people that year.

At the time of this painting, Brown was thinking of moving to India with his new family. This painting may explain his feelings about leaving and why he did not emigrate?

Although Ford Madox Brown was never a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, this painting, like many of his paintings, exhibits the movement’s characteristics in its bright color and a particular focus on naturalistic detail.

The format of the picture is circular. It may have been influenced by telescopes at the seaside, which became the fashion at mid-century.

This painting was voted Britain’s eighth-favorite picture in a poll carried out by BBC Radio. It was also voted 32 out of 57 paintings chosen by the British public from national collections used in a large Art Exhibition.

The Last of England – Cartoon, Pencil, image edged with brown ink on paper.

Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown (1821 – 1893) was a French-born British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic Pre-Raphaelite style.

Brown spent the latter years painting the twelve works known as The Manchester Murals, depicting Mancunian history, for Manchester Town Hall.

Ford Madox Brown was married twice. His first wife died in Paris, aged 27, on the journey back to England from Rome.

Emma Hill became a frequent Brown model, six years after his first wife’s death; she is the wife in “The Last of England.”

Emma became his mistress, and they shared a house in London, but social convention made him unable to marry an illiterate daughter of a bricklayer. After the birth of his first daughter, they were married.

The Last of England

Title: The Last of England
Artist: Ford Madox Brown
Date: 1855
Medium: Oil on canvas
Style: Pre-Raphaelite
Dimensions: W: 750 x H: 825 mm
Museum: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Ford Madox Brown

Name: Ford Madox Brown
Born: 1821, Calais, Kingdom of France
Died: 1893 (aged 72), London, England
Nationality: English
Notable works:
- The Last of England
- Romeo and Juliet

“The Last of England” by Ford Madox Brown

Pre-Raphaelites

The Pre-Raphaelites focused on painting subjects from modern life, and literature often used historical costumes for accuracy. They painted directly from nature itself, as accurately as possible, and with intense attention to detail.

The Pre-Raphaelites defined themselves as a reform movement, created a distinct name for their art, and published a periodical to promote their ideas.

The Pre-Raphaelites was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848.

The group intended to reform art by rejecting what it considered the mechanistic approach first adopted by the artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo, hence the name “Pre-Raphaelite.”

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colors, and complex compositions of Pre-Raphaelite Italian art.

Ford Madox Brown

Exploring Pre-Raphaelite Art

John Everett Millais

Isabella
Christ in the House of His Parents
The Martyr of Solway
Ophelia
Blow Blow Thou Wind
The Black Brunswicker
A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford
The North-West Passage

William Holman Hunt

The Finding of the Savior in the Temple
Our English Coasts
Isabella and the Pot of Basil
Self-portrait William Holman Hunt
Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids
The Scapegoat
The Lady of Shalott

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Lady Lilith
Dante’s Dream
Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Self Portrait
The Beloved
Bocca Baciata
Paolo and Francesca da Rimini
The Day Dream
The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice
Helen of Troy

John William Waterhouse

The Lady of Shalott
The Favorites of the Emperor Honorius
Circe Invidiosa
Diogenes
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott
Hylas and the Nymphs
Echo and Narcissus
Ulysses and the Sirens
Consulting the Oracle
A Tale from the Decameron
Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses
Saint Eulalia
Fair Rosamund
Lamia

Marie Spartali Stillman

Love’s Messenger

Ford Madox Brown

Romeo and Juliet
The Last of England

Henry Holiday

Dante and Beatrice

Edward Burne-Jones

The Star of Bethlehem
King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid

Frederick Sandys

Queen Eleanor
Morgan-le-Fay
Mary Magdalene
Medea

Frank Dicksee

The Funeral of a Viking

John Collier

Lady Godiva
The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson

William Dyce

Francesca da Rimini

Arthur Hughes

Fair Rosamund
The Eve of St Agnes

Pre-Raphaelite Art Objects

The Great Bookcase

A Virtual Tour of Museums in the United Kingdom

London Museum
Edinburgh Museums
Glasgow Museums
Liverpool Museums
Manchester Museums
Bath Museums
Birmingham Museums

Ford Madox Brown and Pre-Raphaelites at Manchester Art Gallery

Quotes about the Pre-Raphaelite Movement

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“All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.”
– John Ruskin

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“The greatest foe to art is luxury; art cannot live in its atmosphere.”
– William Morris

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“Art is not a study of positive reality; it is the seeking for ideal truth.”
– John Ruskin

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“Better by far, you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.”
– Christina Rossetti

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“The past is not dead; it is living in us and will be alive in the future, which we are now helping to make.”
– William Morris

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“The artist has done nothing till he has concealed himself — the art is imperfect which is visible-the feelings are but feebly touched if they permit us to reason on the methods of their excitement.”
– John Ruskin

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“With the arrogance of youth, I determined to do no less than to transform the world with Beauty. If I have succeeded in some small way, if only in one small corner of the world, amongst the men and women I love, then I shall count myself blessed, and blessed, and blessed, and the work goes on.”
– William Morris

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“When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me.”
– Christina Rossetti

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“Love, which is quickly kindled in the gentle heart, seized this man for the fair form that was taken from me; the manner still hurts me. Love which absolves no beloved one from loving, seized me so strongly with his charm that, as thou sees, it does not leave me yet.”
– Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”
– John Ruskin

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Photo Credit: Ford Madox Brown [Public domain]

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