The Packet Delayed

In The Packet Delayed Dadd has drawn upon a recollection from his past. The model for the boys may be Dadd himself or two of Dadd’s brothers. Through his incarceration Dadd was deprived of models and forced to fall back on his own memories. As a result, the children in his scenes are depicted in an unsentimental way. The watercolour is closely related to Juvenile Members of the Yacht Club (Allderidge, op.cit., no. 121) and the two boys appear in a number of other watercolours 'The Passions’ sketch Suspense or Expectation (Allderidge, op.cit., no. 149) and The Balladmonger (Allderidge, op.cit., no. 111). Allderidge’s catalogue entry for Suspense or Expectation (loc. cit.), is equally relevant to the present watercolour: 'Dadd here paints recollections of his own past with total veracity but without any sense of nostalgia, vividly recapturing the spirit which belongs uniquely to the preoccupations of childhood. The changed perception of childhood which comes with increasing distance from it was to some extent made impossible for Dadd by his isolation in a place where he could never see children’. The study of the rough water in the foreground engulfing the branch is another example of the strength of his visual memory; painting images which he could not have seen for many years. The criss-cross fence, which acts as a screen to the background, is a common device in Dadd’s work and helps define the boys' position in the middle-ground. Their hard staring eyes are also characteristic of Dadd’s work. In terms of technique The Packet Delayed is painted in the broad washes typical of Dadd’s work of the 1850s, which was replaced by the pointillist technique seen in many of his later watercolours of the 1860s.

Born in Chatham in 1817, Dadd enjoyed a brilliant early career, winning three silver medals at the Royal Academy Schools. Beginning to exhibit in 1837, first at Suffolk Street then at the Royal Academy and the British Institution he revealed a strong inclination towards imaginative painting, concentrating on fairy subjects. However, there was clearly a strong streak of madness in Dadd's family. He was one of seven children, four of whom died insane, including his younger sister Maria Elizabeth, who married the painter John Phillip.

In 1842 he was approached by Sir Thomas Phillips, to accompany him on a tour of the Middle East. The visual excitement and physical hardship of the ten-month Middle-Eastern tour precipitated a crisis. Dadd returned insane, and in August 1843 murdered his father at Cobham, believing that he was acting as the agent of the Egyptian god Osiris who had ordered him to exterminate the devil. Following the murder, he fled to France, where he attempted another murder and was arrested. Having been extradited to England, he appeared before magistrates at Rochester. On 22 August 1844, he was committed to Bethlem Hospital. Dadd remained in Bethlem for twenty years, moving in 1864 to the newly built Broadmoor in Berkshire.

Sir Colin Anderson (1904-1980), to whom this watercolour belonged, was a key figure in the world of British art; he was, at various times, Chairman of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery; a Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the English Opera Group; a Trustee of the National Gallery; Chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission; Provost of the Royal College of Art; and first Jubilee Medal winner of the Royal Society of Arts.