Jane Gray's Execution

On February 12, 1554, the Queen of England, Mary Tudor, executed the pretended prisoner in the Tower , the “Queen for nine days,” Jane Gray and her husband Guildford Dudley . In the morning on Tower Hill , Guildford Dudley was publicly beheaded, then in the courtyard of the Tower , at the walls of St. Peter's Church, Jane Gray was beheaded. The last minutes of her life are set forth in the report of Nuncio Kommendoni and Protestant worldly literature. According to the curators of the National Gallery, these stories are a myth generated by anti-Catholic propaganda shortly after the execution of Jane ^[1] ; however, modern historians usually take them for the truth. According to legend, before the execution, Jane was allowed to turn to a narrow circle of those present and hand out the few things that remained with her to her companions. Prayer book with a death letter, intended for transmission to the sisters, went to the commandant of the TowerJohn Bridges , gloves and shawls - Elizabeth Tilney, who served Jane in custody ^{[comm. 1]} . At the last moment, after the executioner traditionally asked the victim for forgiveness, Jane left the forces. Blindfolded, she lost her orientation and could not independently find the way to the block ^[2] : “What should I do now? Where is she [chopping block]? ”( Eng. What shall I do? Where is it? ^[3] ). According to Kommendoni, none of the companions dared to approach Jane, and a random person from the crowd led her to the block ^[3] .

It is this moment of dying weakness captured in the picture of Delaroche ^[4] . The artist deliberately departed from the well-known historical circumstances of the execution, depicting not an open courtyard, but a gloomy dungeon of the Tower. Jane is dressed in white - which is absolutely unbelievable for the 16th century ^{[comm. 2]} ; in fact, she was dressed in the same simple black robes as she was in court in November 1553 ^{[5] [6]} . Two women sobbing to the left of the wall - serving Jane and present at the execution, Elizabeth Tilney and her relative “Lady Allan” (or “Ellen”), whose full name has not been preserved ^[7] . The man in furs accompanying Jane is not the legendary “man from the crowd”, but the real jailer John Bridges ^[8] . The name of the executioner remained unknown.

“The Execution of Jane Gray” was written in the early years of the July monarchy , at a time when the academic art of France was on the “middle path” ( French juste milieu ) between classicism and romanticism ^[8] , and the “historical genre” ( French genre historique ) of a large canvas, first declared itself at the Salon of 1833, only came into fashion ^[9] . Delaroche was already considered a recognized master: in 1833 he became a professor at the School of Fine Arts and took over the leadership of the art studio and school of his teacher Antoine Grou ^[8] . The students of Delaroche most likely participated in the creation of “Execution of Jane Gray,” but neither documentary evidence, nor any traces on the canvas were preserved about this ^[10] . The customer of the canvas was probably its future owner Anatoly Demidov , who paid in 1834 eight thousand francs for the painting ^{[11] [comm. 3]} .

In accordance with the academic canon, Delaroche, having studied the subject of the future picture, began with a preliminary study of its composition, then completed detailed drawings of the main characters, verified their poses and facial expressions on paper, and then transferred their outlines from paper to canvas ^[12] . In the work on “Princes in the Tower” (1831), Delaroche worked out the composition on sculptural images of wax and gypsum, but in the work on “Jane Gray” they were hardly necessary; most likely, the artist limited himself to sketches from living nature ^[13] .

The first surviving sketch of Delaroche dated to 1832. Its main difference from the finished picture is in color: the picture is painted in rich, warm colors, in the sketch they coexist with cold green and dark blue spots ^[10] . The composition of the sketch is very close to the finished picture, with the exception of the interior design and the executioner’s figure ^[14] . In the sketch, the interior is not Gothic , but Romanesque ; the executioner does not hold an ax, but a sword ^{[10] [14]} . Probably, Delaroche reproduced in the sketch the legend of the execution of Anna Boleyn , and then returned to the historical description of the execution of Jane Gray ^[15] . He must have studied the available historical sources, but the full body of his sources is not known; only the French-speaking “Martyrology of Protestants” of 1588 ^{[8] [comm. 4]} . Presumably, the artist also used engraved copies of “Execution of Jane Gray” by : the pose of the chamberlain in the Delaroche etudes almost repeats the picture of Opie ^[16] . An analysis of the sequence of sketches shows that Delaroche already at the very beginning decided on the figures of the chambermaids and the jailer (their drawings, intended for transfer to the canvas, are stored in the Louvre and in the British Museum ^[13] ), and then focused on the figure of Jane, blindly looking for a way to chopping block, and on the interpretation of the image of the executioner ^[17] . Model Jane, allegedly, was the actress " Comedy Francaise " ("Mademoiselle Anais") ^[17] .

Delaroche painted a picture on double-primed canvas, without using cardboard and imprimatur sauce , which was then practically obligatory in academic painting ^[18] . He transferred the outlines of each figure to the canvas separately — the radiograph shows that each of them was painted with charcoal on its own large-scale grid ^[18] . The undermining was made with neutral gray and brownish colors, with rare inclusions of green and blue tones ^[19] . Already at this stage, the artist prescribed the contours and details so precisely that the under-stage should have looked like a grisail list with a finished picture ^[19] . Then, after drying the undercoat, he completed it using just one or two coats of paint; where subtle, barely noticeable color transitions were required, the second layer was applied over the still wet first one ^[20] . Jane's dress is painted with lead whitewash in hazelnut oil with an admixture of ocher , cobalt blue and cassel brown : only the fractions of pigments change during the transition from light to shadow ^[20] . There are almost no spots of pure pigments, exceptions are the pure carmine of the clothes of the maids and shadows on the executioner's pants ^[21] . Even the black clothes of Bridges are not painted with soot , but with a mixture of soot, krapp , Prussian blue and yellow pigments (the same mixture was later used by Eduard Manet ) ^[21] . Probably, conservatism in the choice of paints (all of them, except tenar blue and synthetic ultramarine , were used as far back as the 18th century) and the complete rejection of bitumen pigments and allowed the canvas to survive the flood of 1928 and the subsequent half century of storage in unsuitable rooms ^[21] .

Parisians first saw the Execution of Jane Gray at the opening of the Salon on March 1, 1834. The central event of this exhibition promised to be the long-awaited picture of Ingres "Martyrdom of St. Symphorion", begun by the artist back in 1824. Professional criticism was divided: out of 63 reviews of the Ingres painting, 25 were meritorious, 35 were negative ^[22] . In approximately the same way, almost equally, opinions about the picture of Delaroche were divided: half of the critics, following the opinion of the public, praised it, the other half vilified. Relatively restrained critics like Gustave Planchet condemned the Delaroshev practice of working with mock-ups and the “theatricality” of the composition, in which all the figures, like the actors on the stage, are lined up near the plane of the canvas ^[23] . The customer’s identity, in the then anti-Russian mood , only spurred criticism of Delaroche by colleagues in the shop like Delacroix ^[24] . The Parisian public, however, greeted the picture of Ingres coldly, and The Execution of Jane Gray - enthusiastically. Delaroche became the triumph of the Salon of 1834, Ingres scandalously left Paris and went to Rome.

After a retrospective display of Delaroche's work in 1857, Theophile Gauthier fell upon the picture. By this time, Gauthier was already ill with criticism of academism and was deliberately neutral towards Delaroche; recognizing the perfection of the technique for the artist, Gauthier reproached him for subserviently following the tastes of the bourgeoisie ^[25] . Delaroche, with his well-tuned composition and refined painting technique, is an ideal artist for the audience who came to the Salon to admire not historical art, but historical anecdotes ^[26] . Gauthier predicted a quick oblivion to him and his school: “What will remain of Delaroche in the future? The same that remained in the theater from Delawin ” ^[27] . The same analogy between Delaroche and the half-forgotten Delavin was given by Alexander Dumas ^[28] . Henry James , who was 14 years old in 1857, recalled in adulthood a strong impression of Delaroche's paintings; over the years, his attitude has changed: “He [Delaroche] was an idol of our youth, but [now] we treat him surprisingly coldly. In fact, it is he, Delaroche, who is mortally cold. His [latest paintings] is a rare mixture of energetic composition and a flat, vulgar performance ” ^[29] .

Based on the picture, a caricature was made in the newspaper of the same name: Louis Philippe acted as a jailer and Liberty as a victim ^[30] .

Under the direct impression of the “Execution” by Delaroche, “Execution of Inessa de Castro” by Karl Bryullov was written. Bryullov, exhibited at the Salon of 1834 " The Last Day of Pompeii ", agreed to argue to write a new painting in just seventeen days. The result, according to Mikhail Allenov, is “tragedy played by actors of a provincial theater and designed for an undemanding taste. Everything is on the brink of defiant vulgarity: “Do you want Delaroche? - here you are Delaroche! “... If you could compare the work of Bryullov and Delaroche, the latter in his paintings is grace and tact” ^[31] . According to Alexander Benois , who considered Delaroche to be a “real decadence” ^[32] , Bryullov was completely “Russian Delaroche” ^[33] , and Delaroche was “local [that is, Parisian] Bryullov” ^[34] . The merit of both of them, Benoit wrote, is that "they poured new blood into the exhausted, dried up on the classical routine academism and thereby continued its artificially existence for many years" ^[35] .

The literature describes the direct impact of the “Execution” of Delaroche on the “Signing of the Death Sentence to Torben Oaks” by Eilif Petersen (1875–1876) ^[36] .

After the death of Demidov in 1870, the painting was acquired by collector . In December 1902, in accordance with the will of his son (1841-1902), the Execution of Jane Gray was transferred to the National Gallery’s branch in ( Henry Tate’s gallery, now Tate Britain ). contemporary foreign art ^{[37] [37]} . By this time, interest in academic painting had long run out, and the work of Delaroche was not particularly valuable to the curators. At first, “Jane Gray” was periodically exhibited, then the unfashionable picture was hidden in the basement ^[37] .

Early on Sunday morning, January 7, 1928, the spilled Thames flooded the basements of the gallery ^[37] . Rescuers and restorers focused their efforts on restoring the most valuable, by the standards of the time, works - fourteen Turner paintings and thousands of damaged graphic sheets ^[37] . Academic paintings by Delaroche and John Martin were not included in the priority list and were not restored; two years later, museum curators reported that these paintings "are unlikely to ever be recognized as valuable from an artistic point of view" ^[37] . “Jane Gray” was left in the basement and forgotten, and in 1959 officially recognized as lost ^[37] .

In the spring of 1973, Tate gallery curator Christopher Johnston, who was looking for materials for a dissertation on contemporary Delaroche John Martin , persuaded gallery restorers to deploy collapsed canvases that had been dusting under desktops for decades ^[37] . One of them turned out to be the "lost" Martin Pompeii's "Death", the other - Delaroche's "Jane Gray". Despite all the hardships, the picture as a whole was, according to Johnston, “in good condition” ( Eng. In sound condition ) ^[37] .

In 1975, the restored painting was again exhibited at the National Gallery ^[38] . None of the organizers could then expect that the academic canvas would be able to attract the masses of spectators; The curator of the exhibition made excuses in the press: “I am not at all aiming to rehabilitate Delaroche. The only thing that our generation may be interested in is the question of what made him so popular in his time ... ” ^[38] . Unexpectedly for the organizers, the picture attracted viewers and for decades remains one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery ^[6] .

• Benoit, A.N. History of Russian painting in the 19th century. - Republic, 1995. - ISBN 5250025242 .
• Bann, S. Paul Delaroche: History Painted . - Reaktion Books, 1997 .-- 304 p. - ISBN 9781861890078 .
• Boime, A. Art in an Age of Counterrevolution, 1815-1848 . - University of Chicago Press, 2004. - ISBN 9780226063379 .
• De Lisle, L. The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray: A Tudor Tragedy . - Random House LLC, 2009 .-- 352 p. - ISBN 9780345516688 .
• Ives, E. Lady Jane Gray: A Tudor Mystery . - Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 .-- 392 p. - ISBN 9781405194136 .
• Kirby, J. and Roy, A. Paul Delaroche: A Case Study of Academic Painting // Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice: Preprints of a Symposium, University of Leiden, the Netherlands, 26–29 June 1995 . - Getty Publications, 1995 .-- P. 166-173. - ISBN 9780892363223 .
• Riopelle, C. Lost and Found // Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Gray . - 2010. - 180 p. - ISBN 9781857094794 .