Lady Jane Grey

1 portrait of Lady Jane Grey

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Lady Jane Grey

by James Ward, after Robert Fulton
mezzotint, 1793
19 7/8 in. x 13 7/8 in. (505 mm x 352 mm) paper size
Given by the daughter of compiler William Fleming MD, Mary Elizabeth Stopford (née Fleming), 1931
Reference Collection
NPG D24993

Sitterback to top

Artistsback to top

  • Robert Fulton (1765-1815), Engineer and artist. Artist or producer associated with 4 portraits, Sitter in 2 portraits.
  • James Ward (1769-1859), Engraver and painter of animals. Artist or producer associated with 40 portraits, Sitter in 4 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Lady Jane is shown taking solace from the Bible as an hourglass measures the passing of her final hours. This print was produced as one of a pair of Tudor royal martyrs alongside the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. The theme had a renewed topicality in 1793, which witnessed the execution by guillotine of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in the French Revolution. The lines of verse below the scene come from Edward Young's influential poem The Force of Religion; Or, Vanquish'd Love, 1714.

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Portrait setback to top

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1793back to top

Current affairs

Whig MP Charles Grey enters a motion for parliamentary reform but is defeated in the House of Commons.

Art and science

Radical philosopher William Godwin publishes Political Justice, an inflamatory document that promoted rational anarchism. This crystallised a wider feeling that a new era of world peace and progress was beginning.
Sir William Beechey is appointed Portrait Painter to her Majesty, Queen Charlotte.

International

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette are executed and the Reign of Terror begins.
France declares war on Britain, Holland and then Spain. William Pitt addresses the House of Commons and Britain hesitantly joins the first coalition of anti-revolutionary European states to oppose the French threat.
Attack on Corsica in which Captain Horatio Nelson loses an eye.

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