Burgo Fitzgerald

Burgo Fitzgerald

H. K. Browne (Phiz)

Steel-plate etching, probably by the artist

5 x 41⁄2 inches

Anthony Trollope,Can You Forgive Her? Vol 1. Facing p.226.

Phiz’s representation of contemporary life, with his emphasis on comedy and the grotesque, is fundamentally at odds with Trollope’s dead-pan realism. This plate typifies the mismatch, giving little sense of the author’s character or setting. By the 1870s Phiz’s comedic idiom had been superseded by the poetic realism of the style known as ‘The Sixties’, and he increasingly struggled to find commissions.

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Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.

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