William Bell Scott

William Bell Scott was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite painters and poets in the mid-nineteenth century, although he spent most of his life away from London as Master of the Government Schools of Design in Newcastle. Cockcrow incorporates many motifs common to Pre-Raphaelite paintings: references to early Christian art, symbolism relating to Christian morality, fairies, detailed and accurate rendering of vegetation, and literary references. Cockcrow was inspired by "Fairy Tale in the Ancient English Style," a poem by the seventeenth century Irish clergyman Thomas Parnell. Inscribed on the back of the painting' s stretcher are the lines:

Here ended all the phantom show,

They smelt the fresh approach of day, And heard a cock to crow.