Exhibited in Liverpool as A Group of Water Carriers, Men and Camels, at a Spring on the Sea Shore at Fortuna, near Mount Carmel, Syria. Dadd passed through Fortuna with his patron, Sir Thomas Phillips, in November 1942. This is the only picture he painted between his return from the Middle East in the Spring of 1843 and the murder of his father in Autumn of that year. During this Summer, his mental illness was at its most acute, and the apparently serene atmosphere of the composition is contradicted by the wild and malevolent look in the eyes of the camels and their attendants. The blazing expression in the eyes of the sitters was to remain a prominent feature in much of the work done during his susequent confinement in Bethlehem Hospital. A study for the naked boy with his back to the spectator is in the British Museum.
Richard G. Reeves in 1857; purchased in England on a visit by Franz Ferdinand of Austria; sold in Vienna after his assassination in 1914
Liverpool Academy, 1843 Manchester, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1857 London, Tate Gallery, Richard Dadd, 1974
Greysmith David, Richard Dadd the Rock and Castle of Seculsion, London 1973, page 173, plate 36 Allderidge Patricia, The Late Richard Dadd, Tate Gallery Publications, London 1974, page 77 Allderidge Patricia, Richard Dadd, Academy Editions, London 1974, pages 22-23