John Calcott Horsley R.A. 1817-1903

William H. Smith, M.P., London by 1876;
Hon. W. F. D. Smith by 1904 ;
Private collection

London, Royal Academy, 1871, no. 193;
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1876, no. 321;
London, Royal Academy, Works by Recently Deceased Members of the Academy, 1904, no. 132;
Edinburgh, Scottish National Portrait Gallery and Mappin Gallery, Sheffield, The Queen's Image; A Celebration of Mary Queen of Scots, 1987

Helen Smailes and Duncan Thomson, The Queen's Image; A Celebration of Mary Queen of Scots, 1987

When the picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1871, the following words accompanied it: 'Mary, at twenty-six years of age, was consigned to the charge of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, and remained captive in their custody for nearly sixteen years. There was little love lost between the Countess and her loyal prisoner. The former, familiarly known as Bess of Hardwick, was a woman of strong character and imperious disposition.' Mary is dressed in black at a mullioned window of her bed chamber where she has been held captive for so many years. She is feeding doves that have flown to the open window from the world outside that she cannot return to. The contrast of their freedom and her captivity is made more pathetic by the entry into the scene of the cruel-faced Bess of Hardwick who clutches the warrant for Mary's execution which will finally release her from her captivity. Her young page who has been holding a plate of bread from which she feeds the birds, hangs his head in grief and her hand-maidens are startled by Bess and the Earl of Shrewsbury's approach.The little dog at her feet and the religious triptych add to the symbolism, denoting fidelity and piety whilst the abandoned lute suggests the silence of lost romance.

The subject of Mary Queen of Scots was an understandably popular subject for nineteenth century Scottish artists and between 1820 and 1897, fifty-six pictures depicting her were exhibited at the Royal Academy including James Drummond's Queen Mary's Last Look at Scotland (sold in these rooms, 30 August 2006, lot 1007) which predates the present picture by only six years. The tragedy of her story was also played out in a series of novels, plays and poems; 'It is hardly surprising that the rise in the cult of Mary Queen of Scots coincided with the advent of this type of heroine in the Gothick novel. Buckets of tears flowed from the eyes of Mary Queen of Scots, instantly winning her the applause of all her many biographers in the nineteenth century.' (Roy Strong, And When id You Last See Your Father, The Victorian Painter and British History, 1978, p. 134)