
Wikimedia Commons • Public Domain
British artist Ford Madox Brown painted this double portrait in 1872, capturing two of Victorian England's most influential liberal thinkers. Henry Fawcett sits in an armchair while his wife Millicent perches on its arm, leaning in toward him with her arm around his shoulder. The intimacy is striking for formal portraiture of the era.
Henry had been blinded in a shooting accident in 1858 but refused to let it derail his ambitions. He became the first blind Member of Parliament and served as Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge. Millicent acted as his guide and secretary, often taking notes for him in the House of Commons. She would go on to lead the women's suffrage movement, becoming president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in 1897.
The painting was commissioned by Sir Charles Dilke, a friend and political ally of the Fawcetts. It now belongs to the National Portrait Gallery in London, where it serves as a rare example of disability represented in Victorian portraiture.

John Constable
National Portrait Gallery, London, London

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
National Portrait Gallery, London, London

Joshua Reynolds
National Portrait Gallery, London, London

Thomas Gainsborough
National Portrait Gallery, London, London
Other masterpieces from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood movement

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1870
Tate Britain, London

John William Waterhouse, 1891
Tate Britain, London
John Everett Millais, 1852
Tate Britain, London

Edward Burne-Jones, 1880
Tate Britain, London

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1874
Tate Britain, London

William Holman Hunt, 1854
Keble College Chapel, Oxford

John Everett Millais, 1850
Tate Britain, London
John William Waterhouse, 1888
Tate Britain, London
Luxury wall art with the same mood and energy. Gallery-quality canvas, no museum crowds.
Browse Collection