The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke was painted by Richard Dadd between approximately 1855 and 1864, during his confinement in Bethlem Royal Hospital. The work was created in oil on canvas and represents one of the artist's most ambitious and detailed compositions, produced over several years while Dadd was under psychiatric care. It stands as a significant example of his mature style and is closely associated with the circumstances of his later life. The painting depicts a dense, fantastical scene populated by a multitude of fairy figures, gnomes, and other mythical beings, arranged in a layered, theatrical composition.

The foreground is dominated by large seed heads and grasses, which create a sense of scale and enclose the figures in a miniature world. The figures are rendered with meticulous detail, each engaged in various activities, while at the centre the fairy feller raises his axe to split a nut, the act named in the title. The figures are packed among giant flowers, twigs and blades of grass, painted in a sombre palette of browns and tans. The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke was never completed to the artist's satisfaction, but it was left in a highly finished state.

The painting was commissioned by George Henry Haydon, the head steward at Bethlem Hospital, and later became part of the collection of the Tate. It has been exhibited widely and is recognized as one of Richard Dadd's most important works, noted for its intricate detail and imaginative vision.