Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 – 6 October 1893) was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style.

Brown's education was limited, as the family frequently moved between lodgings in the Pas-de-Calais and relatives in Kent, but he showed artistic talent in copying of Old Master prints.

His father initially sought a naval career for his son, writing to his former captain Sir Isaac Coffin.

[2] He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, a work inspired by Lord Byron's poem The Giaour (now lost) and then completed a version of The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, with his cousin and future wife Elisabeth Bromley as one of his models.

Though closely linked to them, he was never actually a member of the brotherhood itself, but adopted the bright colours and realistic style of William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais.

Brown struggled to make his mark in the 1850s, with his paintings failing to find buyers, and he considered emigrating to India.

In an unusual tondo format, the painting is structured with Brown's characteristic linear energy, and emphasis on apparently grotesque and banal details, such as the cabbages hanging from the ship's side.

The image erupts into proliferating details from the dynamic centre of the action, as the workers tear a hole in the road – and, symbolically, in the social fabric.

[5][6] Brown found patrons in the north of England, including Plint, George Rae from Birkenhead,[7] John Miller from Liverpool, and James Leathart from Newcastle.

By the late 1850s he had lost patience with the poor reception he received at the Royal Academy and ceased to show his works there, rejecting an offer from Millais to support his becoming an associate member.

They were married in Meopham in Kent in April 1841, shortly before his 20th birthday and less than a year after the sudden death of his sister Elizabeth.

She died in Paris in June 1846, aged 27, on the journey back to England from Rome, and was buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery.

She became his mistress, and they shared a house in London, but social convention discouraged him from marrying an illiterate daughter of a bricklayer.

[9] Their son, Oliver Madox Brown (1855–1874) (known as Nolly) showed promise both as an artist and poet, but died of blood poisoning before his maturity.

Brown used Arthur as the model for the baby held by a ragged girl in the foreground of Work, but he died aged only ten months old in July 1857.