拍品專文
The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856 with the following note in the catalogue: 'Scene: The prison of the Temple. Persons present: The Queen, her son and daughter, the sister of Louis XVI, and the members of the Revolutionary Committee. "At last, the Queen, having collected all her energies, seated herself, drew her son near to her, and placed both her hands on his little shoulders; calm, motionless, so absorbed in grief, that she neither wept nor sighed. She said to him, in a grave and solemn voice: 'My child, you are going to leave us: remember your duties when I am no longer near to remind you of them; never forget the merciful God who has appointed you this trial, or your mother, who loves you; be modest, patient, and good, and your father in Heaven will bless you.' She said these words, kissed her son on the forehead, and gave him back to the gaolers." Beauchesne.'
The picture appeared a year after Ward had been elected a Royal Academician and was clearly intended to be a major expression of his powers. It was certainly well received. The Art Journal, having noted with approval that it showed 'more freshness, less of the yellowness of the French school than we have seen in antecedent works', continued: 'We cannot too highly praise the dispositions; the composition is not thronged with useless material; every object has its voice in the story. Upon the whole, we think, it cannot fail to be pronounced the best of the pictures which the artist has executed from the history of these "unfortunates". It will establish a reputation already among the highest: and may be safely considered the most admirable work of the exhibition.'
Frederick Stephens in the Athenaeum was also enthusiastic. 'This is one of the artist's manliest and most powerful works', he wrote. 'The scene is a gloomy den in the Temple, where Marie Antoinette is taking leave of her son and daughter, while the Revolutionary Committee wait at the door for the children. The daughter of the Hungarian rex, her great heart still unbroken, her beauty scarcely yet faded, her rich hair not yet bleached grey by prison damps, is bending with queenly but tender affection over her son, whose frank look of boyish affection is excellently conveyed ... The girl's grief is more ecstatic and passionate. The Queen's sister-in-law bends watchfully over her chair. They are the suffering minority. At the door stands the embodied Revolution, in all its phases, calm, stern fanaticism, - insolent, vulgar tyranny, - and mere brutal red-handed will and violence. The blustering pompous bourgeois, in the long, columinous, striped lilac coat, conical hat and tri-coloured sash, holds out his watch to indicate that the time is up. At this the butcher in the bonnet rouge and tucked up sleeves sniffs blood, and seems ready for violence; but the St Just-like, broad-browed, pale officer by his side, strikes down the bully with an indignant flash of his eye. We regret that this personage, who seems to be brought in as the Spirit of the Revolution, stern as Destiny, yet for a moment pitying the victims that the earthquake must, he sees, swallow, was not made a more prominent object in the picture. In colour Mr Ward is more than usually pleasing; he is less brown and black, and its texture less woody. The coloured worsteds, tri-coloured scarfs, and the boy's cockade are pleasant points of contrast.'
The Redgraves, who no doubt saw the picture in 1856, were again to rate it highly, describing it as 'one of the best and most popular' of the artist's productions. Only Ruskin, it seems, had reservations. Eagerly scanning the exhibition for signs of Pre-Raphaelite influence, he wrote in Academy Notes: 'I fear this picture must be excepted from the progressive list, and marked as one of the representations of the old school; but it is not a bad one.' It was in fact the only picture by Ward ever to be mentioned in Ruskin's published writings.
Born in Pimlico, the son of a banker, Ward was encouraged in his artistic studies by Chantrey and Wilkie, who sponsored his admission to the R.A. schools in 1835. From 1836 to 1839 he studied in Rome, where he gained the silver medal of the Academy of St Luke for historical composition; he visited Paris on the way out, and on the way back he stopped for some months in Munich to learn the art of fresco painting from Cornelius. This stood him in good stead when he returned to London (where he was associated with Richard Dadd and other members of 'The Clique'; see lot 120) and entered the Westminster Hall competitions. His cartoon of Boadicea was commended in 1843, and in 1852 he was commissioned to paint eight subjects from English eighteenth-century history in the corridor of the House of Commons. His easel paintings, which he exhibited regularly and to great acclaim at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and Suffolk Street, were also concerned almost exclusively with English seventeenth and eighteenth-century history, the French Revolution and Napoleon, or such authors of the period as Goldsmith and Molière. His interest in French history is in keeping with his style. Although he was far from unique among English artists in his taste for historical genre, he is closer to a painter like Delaroche in France, and it is significant that he enjoyed an international training, including some weeks in Paris, and that the Art Journal, in the passage quoted, refers to him losing 'the yellowness of the French school'. An attractive and much loved character, Ward committed suicide in a fit of depression caused by the illness which clouded his last years. His studio sale was held at Christie's on 29 March 1879, and he is well represented in the Tate and the V&A.
The picture appeared a year after Ward had been elected a Royal Academician and was clearly intended to be a major expression of his powers. It was certainly well received. The Art Journal, having noted with approval that it showed 'more freshness, less of the yellowness of the French school than we have seen in antecedent works', continued: 'We cannot too highly praise the dispositions; the composition is not thronged with useless material; every object has its voice in the story. Upon the whole, we think, it cannot fail to be pronounced the best of the pictures which the artist has executed from the history of these "unfortunates". It will establish a reputation already among the highest: and may be safely considered the most admirable work of the exhibition.'
Frederick Stephens in the Athenaeum was also enthusiastic. 'This is one of the artist's manliest and most powerful works', he wrote. 'The scene is a gloomy den in the Temple, where Marie Antoinette is taking leave of her son and daughter, while the Revolutionary Committee wait at the door for the children. The daughter of the Hungarian rex, her great heart still unbroken, her beauty scarcely yet faded, her rich hair not yet bleached grey by prison damps, is bending with queenly but tender affection over her son, whose frank look of boyish affection is excellently conveyed ... The girl's grief is more ecstatic and passionate. The Queen's sister-in-law bends watchfully over her chair. They are the suffering minority. At the door stands the embodied Revolution, in all its phases, calm, stern fanaticism, - insolent, vulgar tyranny, - and mere brutal red-handed will and violence. The blustering pompous bourgeois, in the long, columinous, striped lilac coat, conical hat and tri-coloured sash, holds out his watch to indicate that the time is up. At this the butcher in the bonnet rouge and tucked up sleeves sniffs blood, and seems ready for violence; but the St Just-like, broad-browed, pale officer by his side, strikes down the bully with an indignant flash of his eye. We regret that this personage, who seems to be brought in as the Spirit of the Revolution, stern as Destiny, yet for a moment pitying the victims that the earthquake must, he sees, swallow, was not made a more prominent object in the picture. In colour Mr Ward is more than usually pleasing; he is less brown and black, and its texture less woody. The coloured worsteds, tri-coloured scarfs, and the boy's cockade are pleasant points of contrast.'
The Redgraves, who no doubt saw the picture in 1856, were again to rate it highly, describing it as 'one of the best and most popular' of the artist's productions. Only Ruskin, it seems, had reservations. Eagerly scanning the exhibition for signs of Pre-Raphaelite influence, he wrote in Academy Notes: 'I fear this picture must be excepted from the progressive list, and marked as one of the representations of the old school; but it is not a bad one.' It was in fact the only picture by Ward ever to be mentioned in Ruskin's published writings.
Born in Pimlico, the son of a banker, Ward was encouraged in his artistic studies by Chantrey and Wilkie, who sponsored his admission to the R.A. schools in 1835. From 1836 to 1839 he studied in Rome, where he gained the silver medal of the Academy of St Luke for historical composition; he visited Paris on the way out, and on the way back he stopped for some months in Munich to learn the art of fresco painting from Cornelius. This stood him in good stead when he returned to London (where he was associated with Richard Dadd and other members of 'The Clique'; see lot 120) and entered the Westminster Hall competitions. His cartoon of Boadicea was commended in 1843, and in 1852 he was commissioned to paint eight subjects from English eighteenth-century history in the corridor of the House of Commons. His easel paintings, which he exhibited regularly and to great acclaim at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and Suffolk Street, were also concerned almost exclusively with English seventeenth and eighteenth-century history, the French Revolution and Napoleon, or such authors of the period as Goldsmith and Molière. His interest in French history is in keeping with his style. Although he was far from unique among English artists in his taste for historical genre, he is closer to a painter like Delaroche in France, and it is significant that he enjoyed an international training, including some weeks in Paris, and that the Art Journal, in the passage quoted, refers to him losing 'the yellowness of the French school'. An attractive and much loved character, Ward committed suicide in a fit of depression caused by the illness which clouded his last years. His studio sale was held at Christie's on 29 March 1879, and he is well represented in the Tate and the V&A.