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The Art of History

A reassessment of Paul Delaroche

Apr 5, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 28 • By HENRIK BERING
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The Art of History

London

 

In 1973, a huge, rolled-up canvas was found in the cellars of the Tate Gallery. Measuring 97 by 117 inches, it turned out to be The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by the French painter Paul Delaroche, a work which had been believed lost when the museum was flooded in the 1920s. The painting shows the 16-year-old blindfolded Lady Jane kneeling in front of a scaffold, clad in radiant white and groping for the chopping block, supported by Sir John Brydges, the Lieutenant of Tower. On her right, the executioner waits impassively with his axe, while two ladies in waiting lament on the other side.

As a lark, the curators of the National Gallery decided to put it on show in 1975 as an example of the bad taste of the Paris Salon; modern museumgoers were expected to disapprove heartily of historical narrative painting. Just to make sure, the accompanying catalogue noted that Delaroche “is regarded, when the 20th century thinks of him at all, as something of a charlatan who merits his present obscurity.” 

But of course, expert opinion and popular taste have a way of disagreeing, and much to the curators’
surprise—and disgust, no doubt—Lady Jane Grey quickly turned into one of the museum’s most popular paintings. The floor in front of it had to be constantly repolished. And now, decades later, a new set of curators has made a reassessment and arranged a full-dress exhibition of Delaroche at the same National Gallery, reestablishing him as an important contemporary of Ingres, Delacroix, and Gericault.

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