Music like Sleeping Children

The Sleeping Children is a marble sculpture by Francis Chantrey. The statue depicts Ellen-Jane and Marianne Robinson asleep in each other's arms on a bed. The statue was commissioned by the mother of the two children, also named Ellen-Jane Robinson, whose daughters had died in 1813 and 1814.

The statue was placed in the south east corner of Lichfield Cathedral in 1817 where it remains today. The work is considered to be one of Chantrey's finest works and one of the greatest works of English sculpture during the period owing to its beauty and grace.

The sculpture depicts the two daughters of Ellen-Jane Robinson (née Woodhouse) lying asleep on a bed in each other's arms. The tragic story depicted by the sculpture begins in 1812 when Ellen-Jane’s husband the clergyman Reverend William Robinson, who had recently become a prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral, contracted tuberculosis and died. Reverend William Robinson was in his thirties at the time of his death and left his wife with their two daughters.