history – IMS Photography

Cardinal Wolsey at the Gate of Leicester Abbey

Ian Malpass-Scott — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 18:29:00 +0000

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England, was for a time the most powerful man in England, second only to the King, Henry VIII. Wolsey fell from favour in 1529 and went north to visit his Archdiocese of York. A year later he was accused of high treason and ordered to return to London. On the way, he stopped at Leicester Abbey. He was so sick that he couldn’t ride the mule, seen here behind him. He is greeted by the abbot and his monks on the steps of the abbey. Wolsey died at the abbey on 29 November 1530.

Prince Albert, accompanied by Prince Waldemar of Prussia, visited Cope to see his picture in the making. He was, according to a contemporary account, ‘much pleased and complimentary, and stayed nearly an hour.’ The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1848. Before the exhibition Cope ‘greyed’ the shadows on the carpet, deepened the shadows on the cardinal and got the painter Sir Edwin Landseer to work on the mule’s head for him.

Signed and dated: C W Cope 1847.

Provenance: Painted for Prince Albert

Text from Royal Collection Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Osborne House, Isle of Wight
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Charles West Cope (1811-90)
Date: 1847

Image Details
Date: 11 June 2024
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
ISO: 640
Licensing: Image of a Royal Collection Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

A Scene from Goethe’s “Götz von Berlichingen”

Ian Malpass-Scott — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 18:29:00 +0000

Goetz von Berlichingen was a successful drama written in 1773 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, based on the memoirs of the sixteenth-century knight and adventurer-poet, Goetz von Berlichingen. The scene depicted here is taken from Act IV, scene iii of Goethe’s play when the hero is summoned to attend the Imperial Commissioners in the Council House at Heilbronn. When the magistrate, standing on the left, rings a bell, a party of armed men appears. Goetz, however, strikes one of them down and snatches a sword from another. The painting is stated to have been painted in Brussels, where Prince Albert and his brother stayed for 10 months, 1836-7, and to have been given by Prince Albert to the Queen of the Belgians. Signed and dated: Albrxt. / 1837. Inscribed on the back with the title and dates.

Provenance: Painted by Prince Albert at Brussels in 1836; given to the Queen of the Belgians in 1850; bequeathed by her to Queen Victoria (Queen Victoria’s acquisitions 1851); recorded in the Queen’s Dressing Room at Buckingham Palace in 1876

Text from Royal Collection Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Osborne House, Isle of Wight
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Prince Albert, Prince Consort (1819-61)
Date: 1836

Image Details
Date: 11 June 2024
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/15s
ISO: 800
Licensing: Image of a Royal Collection Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.