The sentencing of Mary Stuart

Details

George Romney (1734-1802)
The sentencing of Mary Stuart
pen and grey ink and grey wash, oval
3½ x 4 5/8 in. (9 x 11.6 cm.)

Provenance

Miss Romney (+); Christie's, London, 24 May 1894, lot number untraced. Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 12 July 1937, lot 74, four in the lot (8 gns to Agnew's).
with Agnew's, London, where purchased by Hugh Chisholm, 1937.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Sale room notice

The group of drawings by Romney relating to Mary Queen of Scots can be dated on stylistic grounds to the 1770s. We are grateful to Richard Stephens for suggesting that the subject matter was given to Romney by his friend William Julius Mickle, poet, author of An Elegy on Mary Queen of Scots, 1775. Mickle also wrote to Romney suggesting he treat the subject of the death of David Riccio, Mary's companion.

Lot Essay

The other works included with the present drawing when it appeared at auction in 1937 were entitled The Music Lesson, Mary Stuart going to the scaffold and Mary Stuart and the Executioner. There are two drawings, possibly the same as those sold in 1937, executed in the same oval format in the de Pass collection at Truro Museum. It has been suggested that they may have been intended as illustrations for a poem or book about Mary Stuart's life.

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