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The Assassination of the duc de Guise
  • Date: 1832
  • Medium: Watercolour and bodycolour with gum highlights on paper
  • Image size: 14.3 x 24.8 cm
  • Inv: P738
  • Location: Not on display
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  • An early watercolour version, with minor variations, of the oil painting, dated 1834, which was exhibited to great popular acclaim at the Paris Salon of 1835 (now Chantilly, Musée Condé). Henri de Lorraine, duc de Guise (1550-88), leader of the Catholic League, was murdered by followers of Henri III in the king’s bedroom at the château de Blois on 23 December 1588. Henri III (1551-89), a weak and indolent monarch (see Bonington, 'Henri III', P323), is shown entering the room to view his rival’s body. Delaroche's rich technique in this highly finished watercolour, probably influenced by the watercolours of Bonington, is appropriate to the subject in its similarity to that of fifteenth or sixteenth-century manuscript illuminations.