ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

painting had not yet been begun at the time of the exhibition and the date was later
changed to 1630) he wrote:
Portraits
At this date, when Cromwell was engaged in cattle farming, the electrical
unease of nerves which is felt by nations prior to the bursting of the
psychological storm, seems to have produced in him a state of exalted
religious fervour mixed with hypochondria, now, owing to the “Letters
and Speeches,” pretty generally understood. 107
Brown strove to make the faces of his figures as close a likeness as possible to the
historical people they represented. For this he relied on books, prints and effigies.
Thus he had consulted Saunders Cabinet Pictures of English Life: Chaucer for a
portrait of Chaucer when he was preparing to paint the poet in The Seeds and Fruits of
English Poetry. 108 This quarter-length portrait (Fig. 83) appears to be based on a full-
length portrait of the poet on the title page of The Works of our ancient, learned, &
excellent English Poet, Jeffrey Chaucer, published in 1687 (Fig. 84). This portrait
was circulated in Victorian books, such as Shaw’s Dresses and Decorations of the
Middle Ages (Fig. 85), and was used as the basis for other works of art such as W. C.
Marshall's statue of the poet (Fig. 78). In the nineteenth century the portrait was
believed to have been based on 'a small portrait existing of him, in illumination, by his
pupil, the poet Ocleve,' then in the British Museum. 109 By comparing Saunder's title
page to the poet as he appears in Chaucer it is possible to see how closely Brown
107 Op. cit. at note 37, p. 10.
108 Op. cit. at note 66, pp. 9, 18.
109 Op. cit. at note 37, p. 5.
112