Ford Madox Brown
The Last of England
1855
Painted by the Pre-Raphaelite-affiliated Ford Madox Brown (1821–1893) between 1852 and 1855, 'The Last of England' is a tondo portrait of a middle-class couple aboard an emigrant ship leaving England for Australia. The wife clutches a small baby beneath her cloak and holds her husband's hand, both of them gazing steadfastly ahead into the Channel spray rather than back at the receding cliffs of Dover. The scene was prompted by the sculptor Thomas Woolner's real emigration to Australia and became one of the defining images of Victorian emigration — at once resigned, tender, and resolute. It is a treasure of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Exhibition Venue
Image source: Wikimedia Commons