"The Death of Cardinal Beaufort" depicts a scene from Shakespeare's Henry VI Part 2, as the king witnesses the death of Cardinal Beaufort, his great uncle.National Trust
Posted on 01/24/2025 5:29:52 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A hidden face recently uncovered in a 1789 Joshua Reynolds painting proves the devil is in the details. In "The Death of Cardinal Beaufort," Reynolds included a demon-like face lurking behind the dying cardinal. But the controversial and chilling demon appeared to fade out of the painting over the years, as multiple conservationists worked on it. Now, the painting has been restored to include the original fiend...
Reynolds created the painting for the Shakespeare Gallery in London's Pall Mall at the end of his career and the inclusion of the lurking figure over the deathbed was not well received, said John Chu, the Trust's senior national curator for pictures and sculpture...
Early prints of the painting showed the demon, but in a second printing of the work in 1792, there was an attempt to remove the evil-looking face, according to the Trust...
The work seemed overpainted to the Trust conservationists. Several layers of paint and six layers of varnish made conservation difficult, said to Becca Hellen, the Trust's senior national conservator for paintings...
The painting is on display at the Petworth House in West Sussex – where it has been for decades, excluding when it was being conserved by the Trust.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
"The Death of Cardinal Beaufort" depicts a scene from Shakespeare's Henry VI Part 2, as the king witnesses the death of Cardinal Beaufort, his great uncle.National Trust
Thanks for the link -- guess this file's been on deck a while.
Leave Santa Claus alone!
Brandon with Hunter and the EMS team?
is it a demon? Or simply death?
Hunter would have a pillow in both hands...
Quite the composition in basic shapes, but it makes hash of the rule of thirds.
I like it.
He was there to sleigh the guy.
Let’s not all get carried away with wild speculation. It’s probably just one of Hillary Clinton’s ancestors, and nothing more.
James Carville.
Good question, and great suggestion. William Blake was also putting various nefarious critters in some of his paintings during the 18th c.
In the 16th c Michelangelo did “The Last Judgement” behind the Sistine altar, and included Minos the Duke of Hell (?), modeled after one of his clerical critics at the Vatican, but portrayed himself as a flayed skin held by Saint Bartholomew.
H Bosch and Matthias Grünewald both painted centuries earlier and often including some scary figures. Hans Holbein the Younger painted “The Ambassadors” (16th c) which has a sort of smear low in the painting. When viewed from a certain angle the rest of the painting is smeared out and a skull appears.
The Nightmare – Henry Fuseli (mid 18th c)
https://www.artst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/The-Nightmare-Henry-Fuseli-768x623.jpg
https://www.artst.org/demon-paintings/
LOL!
Heh, yeah, it may have been Yorick, he seems to have gotten around.
It’s Jacob Marley.
LOL!
Jake had a hard time with the dreads, because he’d gone bald by the time he died.
:^)
"Dance of Death" drawings were popular from medieval times right up into the 18th century. They simply drew the moral that death comes for all - from the highest to the lowest.
One of the best known is Hans Holbein's series.
Creepy
Personification of death, grim reaper, etc, got more attention in graphic arts during the recurring bouts of The Plague.
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