Ford Madox Brown: Work Boxed Notecards

Known for his meticulous craftsmanship and use of brilliant color, Ford Madox Brown (English, b. France, 1821–1893) studied with noted Belgian painter Egide Charles Gustave Wappers. A close associate of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, he also cofounded William Morris’s decorative arts company, for which he designed stained glass and furniture. The four paintings reproduced in this notecard collection are details of Brown’s most celebrated painting, Work, a Victorian social commentary on the importance of work. Brown is said to have been inspired by the sight of laborers installing drains, as depicted in one of the details. In another, an impoverished flower seller is followed by a woman doing religious work (distributing tracts). Also portrayed are two of society’s “brainworkers,” F. D. Maurice, founder of the Working Men’s College, and essayist Thomas Carlyle, whose work influenced Brown. Note the copy of The Times under one laborer’s arm and the Masonic symbols of trowel and set-square, representing education and advancement in one’s trade, the keys to prosperity.

Published with the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. Contains five each of the following notecards: four details of Work (1863) by Ford Madox Brown.