Chairing the Member
- Artist: Benjamin Robert Haydon
- Date: 1828
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: frame: 1745 x 2150 x 90 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Chairing the Member” by Benjamin Robert Haydon, painted in 1828. It’s a large oil on canvas that captures a bustling prison courtyard, a setting Haydon sketched while he was locked up for unpaid debts. The scene is an elaborate, election‑themed masquerade put on for the inmates’ own amusement.
At the center, a prisoner dressed in dark green sits on the shoulders of two men, swinging a champagne flute in a mock “chairing” ceremony – a playful nod to a newly elected member of Parliament. Beside him, a fellow prisoner rises on another pair of shoulders, defying a warden clutching a cell‑door key.
The composition is full of details that reveal the prisoners’ lives: bottles of wine, a small tin with a pineapple, betting slips and a few bills from a pawnbroker. These items hint at the debts and economic hardships that landed them behind bars. A young family in the corner, one member drunkenly staring at a bottle, illustrates the everyday struggles of debt and poverty.
Haydon himself is included, leaning out of a window on the right, watching the chaos unfold. The painting, purchased by the museum in 1946, sits on display in the historic 1776‑1833 collection, offering a vivid snapshot of 19th‑century prison life and political satire.
See it in person
Chairing the Member is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
