Augustus Leopold Egg (1816-63)

Photograph showing full length portrait of Augustus Egg standing, facing three-quarters to the right. He looks to the front. Egg is depicted holding a walking stick in his right hand. He stands in front of a table and a plinth, the latter draped with material.

Egg was a Victorian artist and exhibition organiser, best known for his triptych Past and Present (1858, Tate Britain) which depicts the breakup of a middle-class Victorian family. He was a member of the Clique group of artists which included John Philip, Frith and Richard Dadd, but unlike the others he did admire the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly William Holman Hunt. Other famous paintings by Egg include The Travelling Companions (1862, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery) and L'Amante (Royal Collection, RCIN 407164). In January 1857 he took part in a play by Wilkie Collins called The Frozen Deep. The play also starred Charles Dickens and was performed for Queen Victoria and a range of venues for charity. Egg was also one of the organisers of the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857.