'Jane Gray'

Photograph of a painting by Paul Delaroche, created in 1833 and now in the collection of the National Gallery (Inv. no. NG1909). Based on a sixteen-century account, the painting presents the final moments of Jane Grey (1537-54), great-granddaughter of Henry VII, who reigned for nine days as queen. Jane is shown blindfolded in a dark interior space, hesitantly about to kneel on a cushion on the flour. She is being guided to place her neck on the block by Sir John Brydges (1492-1557), Lieutenant of the Tower of London. Her executioner stands passively at the right, while two of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting appear distraught in the background, to the left.