The story behind the painting
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey
Blindfolded Lady Jane Grey kneels in a bright white dress and reaches for the execution block. Her searching hands give the large scene an intimate point of attention.
- Blindfolded Lady Jane kneels before the execution block.
- Her hands reach blindly toward the wooden block.
- White satin makes her the brightest figure.
- Two attendants collapse or turn away at left.
- The executioner waits to the right of the group.
- Dark arches turn the room into a stage.
- Jane reaches for the block that we can see but she cannot.
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey is an 1833 painting by Paul Delaroche of the blindfolded Lady Jane Grey, England’s deposed ‘nine days’ queen’, feeling for the block moments before her execution in 1554; it hangs in the National Gallery, London.
What is happening in The Execution of Lady Jane Grey?
Blindfolded Lady Jane Grey kneels in a bright white dress and reaches for the execution block. Her searching hands give the large scene an intimate point of attention.
The National Gallery, London, which owns the painting, identifies the moment: Jane asks, ‘What shall I do? Where is the block?’, and the man guiding her is Sir John Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower. (The National Gallery, London)
Who was Lady Jane Grey?
Jane was proclaimed queen of England for nine days in 1553 and executed in 1554. Delaroche painted her final moments nearly three centuries later.
Her brief reign followed the death of Edward VI and ended when supporters of his half-sister and heir, Mary Tudor, deposed her. Tried for treason, she was beheaded at Tower Green, inside the Tower of London, on 12 February 1554. The gallery gives her age as 17. (The National Gallery, London)
Who are the other people in the painting?
A man guides her towards the block. The careful gesture helps us understand her vulnerability without requiring the violence itself to be shown.
At the left, one attendant sits with Jane’s discarded clothes while another turns towards a column. Their different poses offer different ways of responding to the event.
The executioner waits at the right. His stillness contrasts with Jane’s uncertain movement and the distress of her companions.
How did Delaroche stage the execution?
The dark architecture frames the white satin. Light isolates Jane so strongly that every other figure appears to gather around her.
Delaroche staged the execution indoors, although it took place outside. The convincing detail serves a dramatic reconstruction rather than a literal record.
Return to the hands and the block. We can see what Jane cannot, and that difference makes watching the scene especially difficult.
Why did Delaroche paint The Execution of Lady Jane Grey?
For the catalogue of the 1834 Paris Salon, where the painting was first shown, Delaroche quoted the Martyrologe des protestants, a book about Protestant martyrs published in 1558; the painting shows the moment that text describes. According to the National Gallery, his likely model for Jane was Mademoiselle Anaïs, an actress of the Comédie-Française known for her blonde hair and slight figure, with whom he was romantically involved. (The National Gallery, London)
The gallery links the subject to the French fascination with English culture in the 1820s and 1830s. Delaroche had visited Britain at least twice, and in 1831 he had painted another killing in the Tower of London, The Children of Edward. French viewers would also have seen parallels with their own recent past: Marie-Antoinette and other members of the French royal family had gone to the guillotine in 1793. (The National Gallery, London)
Who was Paul Delaroche?
Paul Delaroche (1797–1856) was a Paris-born painter known for scenes from English and French history, the son of a prominent art dealer and a leading pupil of Antoine-Jean Gros. His work joined Romantic emotion to the detail and highly finished surfaces of academic painting, and The Execution of Lady Jane Grey was his most acclaimed painting in its day. After critics received his religious works badly, he stopped exhibiting altogether after 1837. His students included Jean-Léon Gérôme and Jean-François Millet. (Wikipedia)
What happened to the painting?
It was an immediate sensation at the Salon of 1834, where crowds pressed forward to get close to it. Some critics found it too theatrical and claimed that Delaroche had based it on John Opie’s Mary Queen of Scots, which he knew from an engraving. Despite that fame, it was forgotten for much of the twentieth century and long thought destroyed in the Thames flood of 1928. After its chance rediscovery in the basement of the Tate Gallery in 1973, it was shown at the National Gallery two years later and remains one of its most popular paintings. (The National Gallery, London)
According to English Wikipedia, it was first bought by Anatoly Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato, and later belonged to the Cheylesmore family; William Eaton, 2nd Baron Cheylesmore, bequeathed it to the National Gallery in 1902. The Tate curator Christopher Johnstone found it in 1973 while searching the flood-damaged canvases for a missing painting by John Martin, which turned up rolled inside the Delaroche. (Wikipedia)
The details at a glance
See it in person
National Gallery · London
Free collection entry
Check display, special dates and entry conditions.
Official visitor information ↗Sources and further reading
- The Execution of Lady Jane Grey — The National Gallery, London
- Artist biography: Paul Delaroche (Wikipedia, English)
- The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (Wikipedia, English)