Fitzgerald's "Ariel" - Vintage Print

John Anster Fitzgerald, 1819?-1906, was a Victorian era fairy painter and portrait artist. He was nicknamed "Fairy Fitzgerald" for his main genre. Many of his fairy paintings are dark and contain images of ghouls, demons, and references to drug use. As an artist, Fitzgerald appears to have been largely self-taught. His work was first shown at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1845; he also exhibited at the British Institution, the Society of British Artists, and the Watercolor Society. In the late 1850s he created a series of Christmas fairies for The Illustrated London News. Fitzgerald gave his works titles that often gave little clear indication of their subjects; art dealers and collectors frequently re-named them, causing great confusion in his artistic canon. Some of Fitzgerald's titles, like The Pipe Dream and The Captive Dreamer, suggest that "Fitzgerald was familiar with the opium dens which, with choral and laudanum, represented the Victorian drug scene". Fitzgerald created "remarkable fairy pictures of pure fantasy, rarely based on any literary theme. A beautiful fairy whose skin, wings, and dress are so pale they are almost invisible. She reclines effortlessly on a tree branch surrounded by large, white blossoms and an array of very colourful, strange birds. This painting was done in 1858.