The Last of England, c.1852/55 Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Ford Madox Brown also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 8-9 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting The Last of England is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

We offer free shipping as well as paid express transportation services.

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The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

Ford Madox Brown’s "The Last of England" is a masterpiece of drama wrapped in Victorian melancholia. This painting is the visual equivalent of an emotional sucker punch - bleak, but achingly human. It captures a young couple, tightly bundled against the cold, leaving England by ship, possibly forever. Their expressions are taut with determination, tinged with a resigned sadness. Look at the man’s hand clasping the woman’s - both symbolic and literal - it’s their tether to a shared future in the unknown, while everything behind them fades into grim uncertainty.

The composition is striking in its unusual oval format, which tightly frames the central figures, drawing your focus to their faces, their intertwined fingers, and that haunting gap between them and the background. Behind them, a glimpse of other passengers, equally downtrodden, drift into the waves, while children play almost indifferently, giving the scene an unsettling mix of the mundane and the tragic.

Brown’s color palette is muted, heavy with the browns and greys of an English winter - or perhaps the mood of departure. The woman’s crimson bonnet offers the only pop of vibrancy, a flicker of life amidst the gloom. His meticulous attention to detail - from the texture of the woolen coats to the stark English coast in the far distance - lends a hyperrealism that almost feels like you could touch the icy air in the scene. Every stroke is deliberate, capturing not only the story of emigration but the heartache of leaving behind one’s homeland.

It’s painted in a style that straddles the Pre-Raphaelite dedication to truth and nature with Brown’s unique handling of light and texture. The choppy sea around them isn’t just water; it’s a metaphor for everything unknown - both foreboding and full of potential.