Isabelle and Orleans
(1938) by the great Australian artist Norman Lindsay (1879-1969). The
French Princess Isabella of Valois (1387-1410) was the daughter of
King Charles VI. Her childhood marriage at the age of eight to
Richard II of England sought peace between the two counties.
Following Richard's grisly murder, Henry IV tried to marry her off to
his son, the future Henry V of Agincourt fame. Isabella refused and
eventually returned to France, where she married Charles, Duke of
Orléans at Compiègne in 1406. The marriage, however, was brief,
Isabella dying in her early twenties giving birth to their daughter,
Joan.
Norman Lindsay presented the married couple in a very strange way. Orleans looks lustful and menacing; Isabelle looks resigned or resentful. I wonder if that said more about Lindsay than it did about the royal couple
ReplyDeleteBut history painting was always more about the painters and theit time than about history.
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