Tea at Trianon: The Whitehall Mural

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, October 8, 2022

The Whitehall Mural

From History Hit:

In 1537, Hans Holbein the Younger painted a vast mural of the Tudor dynasty. It depicted King Henry VIII, his father Henry VII and each of their wives: Jane Seymour and Elizabeth of York. The mural was part of a wider decorative scheme in Whitehall Palace, a warren of residences covering 23 acres which had been seized after the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529.
The Whitehall Mural, as it came to be known, was commissioned at some point during Henry’s brief marriage to his third wife, Jane Seymour, which lasted from 30 May 1536 to 24 October 1537. The mural may have been commissioned to celebrate their marriage, or perhaps to pre-empt the birth of what was hoped to be a long-awaited male heir. Jane did indeed give birth to a son (the future Edward VI) in 1537 but died of postnatal complications less than two weeks later.

The mural was a well-known image throughout the 17th century, for Whitehall Palace was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when it was destroyed by a fire on 4th January. Many great works of art were lost, including Holbein’s famous mural, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s marble portrait bust of King Charles I and Michelangelo’s sculpture of Cupid. (Read more.)