Portrait of Maud

Michael Frederick Halliday

Pencil on paper

7 x 5 inches (17.7 x 12.7 cm)

Collection of the British Museum, registration no. 1964,0613.1, image courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum.

This drawing shows Maud standing while a young man crouches down at her side kneeling on his left leg and looking up at Maud. Bare trees with bitrds perching in them are seen in the background. The subject is taken from Alfred Tennyson’s poem “Maud” from Maud, and Other Poems published in 1855, Tennyson’s first published collection after being appointed poet laureate in 1850. Halliday’s drawing was influenced by Millais’s modern life illustrations for The Moxon Tennyson published in 1857. At the first Pre-Raphaelite Group Exhibition held in 1857 Halliday had exhibited Locksley Hall vide Tennyson. Milliais had provided illustrations to this poem in The Moxon Tennyson. — Dennis T. Lanigan

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