The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

historical

Anglomania was in fashion in France in the 1820s and 1830s. Interest in British history, fuelled by the novels of Sir Walter Scott, was further stimulated by parallels drawn between recent events in France and the turbulent accounts of Tudors, Stuarts and the Civil War. The pictorial representation of British history may have been pioneered in Britain, but it was the Frenchman Paul Delaroche who gained a European reputation with the grand scenes drawn from it which he exhibited at the annual Paris Salon between 1825 and 1835.

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About the Artist

Paul Delaroche

1797 – 1856

French painter, one of the leading pupils of Gros. He achieved great popularity with his melodramatic history scenes, engravings of his work hanging in thousands of homes. Often he chose subjects from English history, as with two of his most famous works, The Little Princes in the Tower (Louvre, Paris, 1831) and The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (National Gallery, London, 1833). They are Romantic in flavour, but academically impeccable in their draughtsmanship and detailing. After a period when such pictures were totally out of favour, his work is once again being treated seriously.

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