Dadd had begun his career as a painter of
fairy paintings before the onset of his mental illness. After he was committed, he was encouraged to resume painting. G. H. Haydon was impressed by Dadd's artistic efforts and asked for a fairy painting of his own. Dadd worked on the painting for nine years, paying microscopic attention to detail He signed the back of the canvas with the inscription: "The Fairy-Feller's Master-Stroke, Painted for G. H. Haydon Esqre by Rd. Dadd quasi 1855–64". According to Patricia Allderidge, 'quasi' "may mean that it was set aside during that period or that it took a long time to start". The end date, 1864, coincides with Dadd's transfer to
Broadmoor Hospital in
Berkshire, the asylum where he spent the remaining 21 years of his life. In order to give context to his work, Dadd subsequently wrote a long poem by the name of ''
Elimination of a Picture & its Subject—called The Fellers' Master Stroke'' in which each of the characters appearing in the picture is given a name and purpose—including myriad references to old English folklore and
Shakespeare—in an apparent attempt to show that the painting's unique composition was not merely a product of random, wild inspiration. From Haydon the painting passed to collector
Alfred Morrison, whose daughter Katharine Gatty gave it to the war poet
Siegfried Sassoon when he married her daughter Hester in 1933. Sassoon withdrew it from a
Sotheby's auction on 29 May 1963 and presented it to the
Tate Gallery "in memory of his friend and fellow officer Julian Dadd, a grandnephew of the artist, and of his [Julian's] two brothers [Stephen Gabriel and Edmund] who gave their lives in the First World War". The painting is now in the
Tate Britain collection. In 1998 it was included in the exhibition
Victorian Fairy Painting at the
Frick Museum in New York City. ==In other works==