How to Read Paintings: The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche
A poignant moment before the horror
A woman is blindfolded and lowered to her knees. Her executioner stands patiently nearby, his fingers quietly reaching for a great metal axe.
But with the blindfold, she is unable to find the block. She stretches out her hands and becomes unsteady on her knees, tilting to one side. She is just a teenager.
According to historical accounts, she cries out: “What shall I do? Where is it?”
Her hands waver in the damp air of the Tower of London. Noticing her uncertainty, the deputy lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Thomas Brydges, steps forward and helps her locate the block where she should lay her neck.
Beneath the block, a carpet of straw has been laid out to soak up the copious amounts of blood that will shortly be spilt.
The next few moments will be horrendous but swift. With her head on the block, she spoke the last words of Jesus as recounted by Luke: “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!”
Knowing what was about to happen, her ladies-in-waiting adopt postures of despair. One has slumped to the ground in lamentation; the other presses her face melodramatically against the stone wall. Notice how the artist draws our attention to their necks, emphasising the terrible fate of their mistress.
The painting takes as its subject the execution of Lady Jane Grey, an English noblewoman who was put to death at the age of just seventeen. The painting was based on the testimony of Lady Jane Grey’s final moments, after her unsuccessful bid to prevent the accession of the Catholic Mary Tudor to the throne.
Lady Jane Grey was the queen of England and Ireland for just nine days. The great-granddaughter of Henry VII, she inherited the crown from her cousin Edward VI on 9 July 1553.
Yet nine days later, after the Privy Council of England suddenly changed allegiance and proclaimed Mary Tudor as queen, Jane was deposed. She was held prisoner in the Tower of London and in November 1553 was convicted of high treason, a charge which carried a sentence of death. She was executed the following February at Tower Green, a private space within the Tower where it was considered more dignified for nobility to be beheaded away from spectators.
The artist behind the image was the French painter Paul Delaroche (1797–1856), a successful academic painter esteemed in his own time for his vivid depictions of subjects from English and French history.
The size of the painting — almost 3 metres wide — creates an immersive optical experience. The feel is not unlike a theatrical scene; indeed, a popular form of entertainment in contemporary French theatre was the tableau vivant, literally a “living picture” in which actors wore period costumes and carried props, and held frozen poses for viewers to gaze upon.
If you look at the lower right of the painting you can even see Delaroche’s deliberate suggestion of a stage set: the dark floor cloth has been pulled back to reveal a wooden stage-like platform, providing the artist with a place to “carve” his signature and the painting’s date of 1833.
To play the role of Lady Jane, Delaroche most likely recruited the famous actress (and his lover) Mademoiselle Anaïs. She is shown with her hair loosened and falling over her shoulder — an artistic liberty that prompts us to sympathise with Jane, since in reality her hair would have been tied firmly upon her head or else cut short.
Indeed, the entire painting is designed to enhance the emotional pitch of the moment. Her gleaming satin petticoat and her pale skin are designed to glow warmly against the muted colours of her surroundings. Delaroche probably chose to dress Lady Jane in white to symbolise her youth and purity — and also to provide a sort of pristine blank canvas, the defacing of which we the viewer can envisage in the bloody moments to come.
In fact, the entire setting was painted to intensify the contrast between light and dark. The execution actually took place outdoors on Tower Green, not inside as shown in the image. The fictional building is a shadowy space of heavy Romanesque architecture, against which the illuminated figures stand out in life-sized relief.
Delaroche made several studies for the painting. These preparatory drawings give us clues about his working practices, most especially the sense that he worked through numerous poses for the different figures to capture the right psychological state for each.
One of the key compositional features of the painting — though subtle — is how no one in the scene looks out at us. Each of them is completely absorbed in the moment and assimilated into a scene that is brilliantly self-contained.
Delaroche submitted his finished painting to the Paris Salon where it was accepted for display in the 1834 exhibition and created an immediate sensation among the viewing public.
Perhaps one of the reasons it caused a strong response was because it recalled the relatively recent events of the French Revolution of 1789. During those tumultuous times, the French royal family had been violently deposed, most notably Marie-Antoinette who faced the guillotine in 1793.
Delaroche’s painting drew parallels between Tudor history and France’s recent and bloody past, creating a poignant and potent image.
If you liked this, you may also be interested in my book What Great Paintings Say, which uncovers the hidden messages and subtle details of some of the world’s most famous works of art.
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