Crabtree Observing the Transit of Venus, after Ford Madox Brown

Rhead was a student of the Victorian artist Ford Madox Brown, who produced a series of twelve murals (1879-1893) for Manchester’s town hall. The paintings were meant to celebrate the city’s history, with a focus on the textile industry, commerce, and religion. In this print, Rhead reproduces Brown’s mural depicting Manchester merchant, draper, and mathematician William Crabtree (1610-1644), who correctly calculated the timing of the planet Venus’s rare passage before the sun.