En route to Paris, Dadd attempted to kill a fellow passenger with a razor but was overpowered and arrested by police. In August of that year, having become convinced that his father was the Devil in disguise, Dadd killed him with a knife and fled to France. On his return in the spring of 1843, he was diagnosed to be of unsound mind and was taken by his family to recuperate in the rural village of Cobham, Kent. He was also trained at William Dadson's Academy of Art. With William Powell Frith, Augustus Egg, Henry O'Neil and others, he founded The Clique, of which he was generally considered the leading talent.

He was awarded the medal for life drawing in 1840. He was educated at King's School, Rochester where his aptitude for drawing was evident at an early age, leading to his admission to the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 20.

Richard Dadd was born at Chatham, Kent, England, on 1 August 1817, the son of chemist Robert Dadd (1788/9–1843) and Mary Ann (1790–1824), daughter of shipwright Richard Martin. Most of the works for which he is best known were created while he was a patient in Bethlem and Broadmoor hospitals. Richard Dadd (1 August 1817 – 7 January 1886) was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail.

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