PAINTING HISTORY: DELAROCHE AND LADY JANE GREY
National Gallery-London
24 February-23 May 2010.
Catalogue to accompany the exhibition published by Yale University Press. £19.99. ISBN: 9781857094794.
The opening section of the exhibition is entitled ‘The Sense of the Past’.
On display are a group of early nineteenth-century French paintings in le style troubadour,
the revival of interest in the subject matter of the Middle Ages, which for contemporaries
embraced the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
The chief ingredients of the work of the ‘Troubadour painters’ consisted of an interior with
historical personages from the French monarchy and aristocracy, making them far more accessible
by rendering them first and foremost as human beings with feelings and emotions; a minute
description of their dress, accessories, and furnishings; jewel-like colours and diffused
light, reminiscent of the ‘little Dutch masters’ of the seventeenth century, such as Gerrit
Dou and Gabriel Metsu (whose technique the ‘Troubadour painters’ studied in the collection
of the Musée du Louvre).
These small, cabinet-size pictures were favoured by the Empress Josephine for her château
de Malmaison. The exhibition then sets out to put Paul Delaroche’s painting, The Execution
of Lady Jane Grey, in its art-historical context. It emphasises how Delaroche, with his reliance
on accurate sources, his attention to detail in the costume, and his finely-painted finish,
albeit on a grander scale, link his painting with those of the ‘Troubadour painters’. The
Execution of Lady Jane Grey is one of the most famous paintings in the collection of the National
Gallery, London. Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554) was nominated by Edward VI to be the next Protestant
monarch of England. She reigned for just nine days as Queen, from 10 to 19 July 1553. She
was deposed by the Catholic Mary I, the sister of Edward IV. Lady Jane was tried for treason
and executed on 12 February 1554.
Delaroche depicts the moment when Lady Jane, blindfolded, is guided to the block by Sir John
Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower. Overcome with emotion, two of her ladies-in-waiting lean
against a pillar to the left of the painting. The executioner stands aside with rope and dagger,
resting on the handle of his axe. Shown at the Paris Salon of 1834, Delaroche’s painting was
a salient reminder of the fate of the French Queen, Marie-Antoinette, who was executed in
1793. (The exhibition features Delaroche’s painting, Marie-Antoinette before the Tribunal,
1851). An often-drawn analogy between the French and English revolutions had revived an interest
in lesser-known English historical figures. Delaroche himself visited England in 1822 and
again in 1827. A highlight of the exhibition for the costume historian is the section displaying
Delaroche’s preparatory drawings, seven of them from the Musée du Louvre, which served as
costume designs. They show that Delaroche had a knowledge of the costume of the sixteenth-century.
The executioner’s jaunty leather cap and square-toed shoes are accurate accessories for the
period and the overall impression of his costume is much more Italianate than English. The
long, black, fur-lined coat of Sir John Brydges is also accurate for the period. Delaroche
must have looked at the paintings of Titian, for example, The Vendramin Family, also in the
collection of the National Gallery, London, where there are several coats almost exact in
detail. The celebrated nineteenth-century French art critic, Théophile Gautier, writing in
L’Artiste, noted the inspiration of Hans Holbein the Younger’s paintings of women wearing
Tudor dress for the ladies-in-waiting. Indeed, the seated lady-in-waiting with her distinctive
kirtle, gown and head-dress, called the English hood or gabled hood, bears strong echoes to
that of Margaret Roper, Sir Thomas More’s eldest daughter in the painting, Sir Thomas More,
his father, his household and his descendants by Rowland Lockey, after Hans Holbein the Younger,
which is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. The dress of Lady Jane
Grey, however, is anachronistic. The catalogue points out that Delaroche knew the Musée du
Louvre’s outstanding collection of Northern painters and suggests that ‘his treatment of Lady
Jane Grey’s sleek, luminous satin dress brings to mind Gerrit Dou’s Femme Hydropique ”, whilst
‘a quote from Rogier van der Weyden’s painting [The Annunciation] can be seen in Lady Jane’s
dress, spreading out on the left just like the Virgin’s with the same heavy gathered folds
spilling into the floor. Delaroche not only borrowed Rogier’s design, but also mimics the
crisp smoothness of his fastidious finish.’ The catalogue to accompany the exhibition is very
richly illustrated and has scholarly essays on this fascinating period in English history.
1 See Alice Mackrell, ‘Dress in le style troubadour’, Costume 32 (1998), 33-44
ALICE MACKRELL