PORTRAITS
THE COMMISSION OF LUNACY
Artist: Jane Lewis
Private Collection
"This painting is inspired by the case of Ann Sercombe (1799-1861), who appeared before an Inquisition of the Commission of Lunacy in 1849. The front page of the document is here displayed framed, copied from the original I viewed at the National Archives at Kew. This is my own flight of fancy depicting an imagined Ann, with figments of her 'unsound mind' made real as Hieronymus Bosch-like monsters in the foreground." [JSL]
[image copyright: Jane Sercombe Lewis]