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The impoverished late 18th-century poet Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), who while still in his teens had poisoned himself in despair, was a romantic hero for many young and struggling artists in Wallis's day. Wallis depicted the poet dead in his London garret, the floor strewn with torn fragments of manuscript and, tellingly, an empty phial near his hand.
The painting was universally praised, not least by John Ruskin who described it as 'faultless and wonderful', advising visitors to 'examine it well, inch by inch'.
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