1884
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Barnaby Rudge Helping Lead the Gordon Riots is a 1884 by Charles Green, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a crowded street at night, torches flaring, people pushing and shouting. A young man with a pet raven on his shoulder tries to calm the mob. This scene comes from a Charles Dickens novel about real riots in 1780s London. The artist drew it for a book, not a gallery—so every line had to tell the story fast. Look how the raven’s wings catch the light, almost like a second face in the chaos. If you like how Green turns words into pictures, try looking up *subject: england, 19th century*.
Charles Green was one of the most successful black-and-white illustrators in Victorian England, known especially for his images related to the novels of Charles Dickens. The subject of this drawing relates to the writer's historical novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty , based on the Gordon Riots. Here, Green depicted participants in an anti-Catholic protest against the Papists' Act of 1778, the most violent outpouring of religious hatred in 18th-century Britain.
This drawing was never published as an illustration, but the character of Barnaby appeared in Charles Green's design for a title page for an edition of Dickens's collected works.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Charles Green R.I. (1840–1898), was a British watercolourist and illustrator. He was the brother of Towneley Green R.I. (1836–1899).
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