ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

in a large number of engravings and paintings by artists such as Joseph Wright of
Derby and Angelica Kauffman. 145
On the first sheet is a sepia pen and ink drawing depicting the scene in which Maria's
mother tells Yorick and his manservant La Fleur where to find Maria (cat. no. 151).
This is a highly unusual scene to have chosen and there appears to have been no
precedent for it in the paintings exhibited. 146 On the second sheet is a watercolour of
the most popular scene from A Sentimental Journey in which Yorick meets forlorn
Maria and walks with her to Moulines (cat. no. 151). 147 The unfinished state of the
first drawing, including sketching in pencil, indicates that Brown was experimenting
with the idea of two linked scenes but thought better of it and worked up only the one
which had a popular following.
Although A Sentimental Journey was successful in France, no paintings based on the
novel were exhibited in the Salons between 1838 and 1845. However, in England it
had enjoyed a revival of interest among painters. In the first decades of the nineteenth
century tastes had changed and the truth about Sterne's real-life philandering meant
that his 'reputation as an ennobling and improving author whose works (suitably
edited) taught compassion by the lessons of sensibility' had faded. 148 By the 1830s it
145
Joseph Wright of Derby and Angelica Kauffman both depicted Maria twice their careers (see
Catherine Gordon, British Paintings of Subjects from the English Novel 1740-1870, New York and
London, 1988, pp. 265-266). The links between Joseph Wright of Derby and Ford Madox Brown are
another area ripe for future research. He admired Wright's work and copied groups of figures in his
paintings such as the young girl holding a baby in the foreground of Work (Fig. 4) which came from
Wright’s An Iron Forge (1772, oil on canvas, Tate).
146
See op. cit. at note 145 and W. B. Gerard, Laurence Sterne and the visual Imagination, Aldershot,
UK and Burlington, USA, 2006.
147
A. E. Whitley’s catalogue of drawings of the Birmingham City Art Gallery (Derby, 1939), identifies
these drawings as illustrations to A Sentimental Journey but does not mention that they are linked.
Combined they illustrate the three consecutive chapters discussing Maria: two entitled 'Maria Molines'
and one entitled 'Maria.'
148
Op. cit. at note 145, p. 78.
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