Details

Object type

painting

Title

Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots

Artist/Maker

Robert Herdman artist

Culture/School

Scottish

Date

1867

Materials

oil on canvas

Dimensions

framed: 1097 x 1300 x 107 mm;unframed: 749 mm x 953 mm

Description

Mary Queen of Scots was a popular subject for Victorian painters. In this painting Scottish artist Robert Herdman consciously romanticized the Queen’s execution on 8 February 1587 at Fotheringay Castle, Northamptonshire. Mary was 44 years old and long imprisonment had left her physically frail and worn. However, Herdman shows her looking elegant and beautiful, wearing a black velvet and satin robe with a white crape veil and Italian ruff, holding a crucifix, a rosary attached to her girdle. Herdman gives us a glimpse of Mary’s red petticoat, symbolising her martyrdom to the Catholic faith. He paints her approaching the emissaries of Queen Elizabeth I and the executioner's block. Light from a window dramatically falls on her face, making her appear a saintly figure, an innocent victim. The two ladies at the foot of the stage are her attendants Elizabeth Curle and Jane Kennedy, the man between them is Sir Andrew Melville, Master of Mary’s household. It is thought that the three men to the right of the painting are the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent and Sheriff Thomas Andrew. The executioner, which one contemporary commentator described as ‘preposterously tall’, is seen from behind, stands with the axe resting on the floor behind him; in the immediate foreground of the painting, it adds further drama and tension to the scene, as does the coffin on the floor to the right.

Since the 16th century there has been a public fascination with the story of the ill-fated Queen of Scots. There has been much debate about her marriages and intrigues, the murders of her husband Lord Darnley and her Italian secretary David Riccio and the extent to which she was powerful political player or innocent victim. She has inspired poetry, prose, theatre, opera and popular song. In 1800 the German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller produced a play on her. In the Victorian period Mary became particularly glamorized as a tragic heroine, this reinforced by the novels of Sir Walter Scott, which had immense popularity; The Abbott (1820) focuses on the Queen's imprisonment at Loch Leven Castle in 1567, her escape, defeat and flight to England.

This painting was actually an illustration to a poem by Henry Glassford Bell, Sheriff of Lanarkshire:

‘[…] Beside the

block a sullen headsman stood,

And gleamed the broad axe in his

hand, that soon must drip with blood.

With slow and steady step there came

a lady through the hall,

And breathless silence chained the

lips, and touched the hearts of all;

Rich were the sable robes she wore,

her white veil round her fell,

And from her neck there hung the

cross, that cross she loved so well!’

The painting was commissioned by the Glasgow Art Union, along with three other paintings by Herdman depicting aspects of the life of Mary Queen of Scots (The Convent Garden; The Farewell to France; The Abdication Signed; The End - Fotheringay). These paintings were presented to James Blaikie of Glasgow in 1868 in the Glasgow Art Union’s annual draw, the Lord Provost commenting that the later than normal draw for prizes was caused by ‘Mr Herdman not giving in his pictures early enough’ (Glasgow Herald, 19 August 1868). However, the paintings proved popular and were shown in key northern cities that year: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Manchester and Liverpool, to critical acclaim. They were photographed by Thomas Annan and bound with Sheriff Bell’s poem in a special edition. This painting, which went through the hands of various owners, was bequeathed to the museum by Adam Teacher, one of Teacher’s Whisky family, in 1898.

Credit Line/Donor

Bequeathed by Adam Teacher, 1898

ID Number

812

Location

Kelvingrove Scottish Identity