1816-1863

From The Art of Shakespeare

Undoubtedly one of the most prominent British artists of the Victorian era, Augustus Leopold Egg exemplified the vital spirit of the age in his many works dealing with literary and theatrical subjects, and through his active involvement in the artistic community. He was also an accomplished amateur actor who, for a time, was involved in Charles Dickens' theatrical troop...

During the 1840's and 1950's Egg became involved with a group of young and spirited artists known as the Clique which included Richard Dadd (1819-1887), John Phillip (1817-1867), William Powell Frith (1819-1909), and Henry Nelson O'Neil (1798-1880). The members of the Clique did not necessarily share one artistic view point or aesthetic outlook but were all united by their opposition to the conservative and restrictive exhibition policies and artistic philosophies held by the powerful Royal Academy. Begun in the 1830's primarily as an informal sketching club, the Clique produced a number of important paitings with Shakespearean themes. 

Of all the painters within the Clique, Egg is the one most closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement in painting which was considered to be among the more revolutiotionary movements of the era. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood felt that painting since the Italian Renaissance was cold, unemotional, and lacked the genuine feeling of pre-fifteenth century painting. The Pre-Raphaelites looked back to the Italian and Flemish primitives for a simpler more direct mode of expression. The Pre-Raphaelite ideal in painting included many of the stylistic devices used by these early masters such as precise, linear draughtmanship, harsh, even illumination, strident and unusual color combinations and dry, highly finished brush stroke. Egg's works began to show a strong Pre-Raphaelite influence in the 1850's...

In delicate health for much of his adult life, nonetheless Egg maintained an extremely active career. He exhibited regularly at the British Institution, the Royal Society of British Artists, and was one of the major contributors to Charle's Heath's gallery of Shakespearean heroines, which was published in 1836... He fell victim to a sever attack of asthma while in Algeria and died there on March 25, 1863.