through the window. It was probably a coincidence that this location was close to the garret in Brooke Street where Chatterton had died 86 years before. The model used for the painting was the young George Meredith, a 19th-century English novelist and poet.

The painting was Wallis's first exhibited work. It was shown at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1856, with a quotation from the Tragedy of Doctor Faustus