#frederic shields

The subject is from Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, an account of the Black Death which killed a third of London’s population in 1664/5. A comet appeared shortly before the outbreak, and visionaries prophesying doom walked the streets. One such fanatic, Solomon Eagle – a semi-crazed Quaker preacher whose real name was Eccles – saw the plague as divine retribution for the sins of the populace. Here, the preacher wears only a burning charcoal grate (to fumigate the air) on his head, and a loincloth. As he stands astride a narrow, cobbled street, with his long hair trailing down his back, he harangues a group of drinkers who lean out of an inn (‘Ye Goat’s Head’) and denounces them for their impenitence.The Civil War of the 1640s, followed by the Black Death and then the Fire of London in 1666 (the 666th year of the second millennium – 666 was the number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation) made it seem to the English that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were actually amongst them, and that the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgement were imminent. Society creaked and cracked; it was a time of fear, superstition and insurrection, of Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchists and Quakers. (source)

Frederic Shields

Study for the Chapel of the Ascension Frederic Shields, c. 1888

Rossetti Working on ‘The Day Dream’ by Frederic Shields, 1880

A Song of Spring Frederic Shields, 1870

'The Dead Rosseti' made in 1882 by Frederic Shields. Frederic Shields (1833 – 1911) was a British artist, illustrator, and designer who was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites through Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown.

Frederic Shields William Blake's Room, 1882-1911

2. Frontispiece “Frederic Shields 1903. C. E. Fry & Son, photographers; Emery Walker Ph. sc.” from The Life and Letters of Frederic Shields. Edited by Ernestine Mills. With Photogravure Portrait and 41 Other Illustrations. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912.