Dedicated artist Benjamin Robert Haydon inspired sonnets by Keats, Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett. He championed the authenticity of the newly-arrived Elgin Marbles.

Haydon's celebrated portrait of his friend Wordsworth hangs in our National Portrait Gallery.

His Hogarthian prison scene, "The Mock Election", was purchased by King
George IV.

Today Haydon is known less for his works than for his vivid, splenetic and highly entertaining diaries.

The story of his life is a uniquely moving tragi-comedy. With paintings and drawings by artists of the early 19th century including Turner, Fuseli, David Wilkie and B.R. Haydon.