The Princes in the Tower

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The Princes in the Tower (John Everett Millais)
The Princes in the Tower
John Everett Millais , 1878
Oil on canvas
147.2 x 91.4 cm
Royal Holloway, University of London

The Princes in the Tower is a painting by John Everett Millais from 1878 . The history painting takes up the story of the princes in the tower and is based on the picture The Sons of Edward IV , an older depiction of the same subject painted by Paul Delaroche in 1830.

The picture shows Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York, standing at the bottom of a staircase. The staircase is dimly lit and is located in the Tower of London . Light shines on the heads and hands of the two, while their dark clothes form a striking contrast with the barely lit stairs.

The story of the Two Princes and their childhood murder was also made in Victorian England through Williams Shakespeare's drama Richard III. very present. Delaroche had already achieved great public success with this topic decades earlier. The subject was well suited for an emotional painting and allowed Millais to work on his subject of human vulnerability. Millais was based on the scenic representation in Shakespeare. Like Delaroche, in childhood he shows both of them huddled together in fearful anticipation. While Delaroche paints the bedroom in which she is in detail, Millais only hints at the staircase disappearing into the dark. His painting focuses solely on the representation of the two people or their seemingly isolated hands and heads.

Millais used his own sons as models. Millais exhibited the picture at the Royal Academy of Arts . Immediately after its release, it grabbed the English imagination and still occupies a place in the visual world of England today.

College founder Thomas Holloway bought the painting in 1881. The painting hangs in the University of London's Royal Holloway College .

Remarks

  1. ^ A b Paul Barlow: Time Present And Time Past. The Art Of John Everett Millais. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Aldershot et al. 2005, ISBN 0-7546-3297-0 , p. 157.
  2. ^ Paul Barlow: Time Present And Time Past. The Art Of John Everett Millais. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Aldershot et al. 2005, ISBN 0-7546-3297-0 , p. 158
  3. ^ A b Alan R. Young: Punch and Shakespeare in the Victorian Era. Peter Lang, Oxford et al. 2007, ISBN 3-03-911078-0 , p. 292.
  4. ^ Julian Bell: At Tate Britain . In: London Review of Books. Vol. 29, No. 22, November 15, 2007, pp. 26-27.
  5. ↑ BBC Your Painting: The Princes in the Tower ( Memento June 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).