The spirits of the prisoners

In 1885 Charles Altamont Doyle was committed to the Royal Montrose Lunatic Asylum in Scotland, and spent the remainder of his life in psychiatric institutions. During his confinement at Montrose he filled several sketchbook dairies and completed a series of watercolours, none more impressive than this nocturnal scene showing a procession of spirits swirling over the asylum rooftop and cascading down its brooding walls. Doyle’s vision of the spirit world is witnessed from the clouds by a bearded apparition – a clearly identifiable portrait of the artist himself. From his cell he also illustrated his son Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story.