Hidden demon uncovered in 18th-century painting
“The Death of Cardinal Beaufort,” a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds depicting a scene from Shakespeare’s play “Henry VI, Part 2,” stirred controversy when it was first shown in 1789, because of a demon that lurked in its shadows.
The choice to include the fanged, sinister-looking figure challenged audiences’ expectations of what was then suitable in painting. At the time, one critic from The Times of London suggested that “some fiend had been laying siege to Sir Joshua’s taste.” Another said the demon’s “ludicrous meanness destroys the terror which is the soul of the scene.”
The creature was eventually hidden under layers of paint and varnish, creating mystery around the painting until this year, when the demon resurfaced after a restoration project by the National Trust, an English conservation charity.
It took six months for the restorer, Sophie Reddington, to uncover the demon and bring the rest of the painting to life, said Emily Knight, the property curator at Petworth House and Park in West Sussex, England, where the work is on display.
The painting, which measures roughly 5 feet by 7 feet, captures a scene from the series of history plays by Shakespeare set during the life of King Henry VI, who succeeded to the thrones of England and France before the age of 1. In the second of the three plays in the series, Henry VI witnesses the death of Cardinal Beaufort, and the scene, in Act 3, Scene 3, is depicted in the painting.
In the play, the king begs God for a peaceful death for the cardinal, his great-uncle,
and declares, “O! beat away the busy meddling fiend.”
When the painting was shown at the Shakespeare Gallery in 1789, Reynolds’ literal depiction of the demon upset some viewers who thought it should not have been included because it was not a character in the Shakespeare play and “it just wasn’t appropriate to depict something that is sort of otherworldly in this physical way,” Knight said.
“You could do that in literature and poetry, you could do that by words, but it wasn’t appropriate in imagery,” she said.
John Chu, the National Trust’s senior national curator for pictures and sculpture, said in a news release that the painting had generated more controversy than
any other work on display.
“There were even people who argued that it should have been painted out,” Chu said, referring to the demon, “although records of conversations with the artist show he resisted such attempts to alter the work.”
The Times of London’s review of the painting in May 1789 said the demon “does no credit to the judgment of the painter.”
The next year, a monthly literary periodical, The Analytical Review, said that the demon had been criticized because it “divides our attention, and enfeebles the importance of the chief character; but above all, because its ludicrous meanness destroys the terror which is the soul of the scene.”