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Dolly Varden
Artist	William Powell Frith
Year	1842
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	54.6 cm × 44.5 cm (21.5 in × 17.5 in)
Location	Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Dolly Varden is an 1842 oil painting by the English artist William Powell Frith featuring the fictional character of Dolly Varden from the 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens.

During the early Victorian era there was a fashion for paintings based on works of theatre and literature, generally featuring popular characters and scenes. Barnaby Rudge was Dickens fifth published novel. It takes place around the time of the Gordon Riots in 1780. Frith, a member of the art group known as The Clique, first met Dickens at the time of the painting. The two men established a friendship that lasted until the author's death in 1870.

The work was exhibited at the Society of British Artists. Frith painted at least four versions of the painting, including one for Dickens himself. The best known of these is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London.

References

1. Trotter p.29
2. Gordon p.205
3. Wood p.15
4. Trotter p.29
5. Wood p.14-15
6. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O80877/dolly-varden-oil-painting-frith-william-powell/

Bibliography

• Gordon, Catherine May. British Paintings of Subjects from the English Novel, 1740-1870. Garland, 1988.
• Green, Richard & Sellars, Jane. William Powell Frith: The People's Painter. Bloomsbury, 2019.
• Trotter, David. William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age. Yale University Press, 2006
• Wood, Christopher. William Powell Frith: A Painter and His World. Sutton Publishing, 2006.

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