Mary, Queen of Scots being urged by Sir Robert Melville to abdicate (from "Oeuvres de Walter Scott: Histoire d'Écosse," series one, volume 26, chapter 29)
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Plate: 8 15/16 × 5 7/8 in. (22.7 × 14.9 cm) Sheet: 11 1/8 × 7 7/8 in. (28.2 × 20 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1958
Accession Number
58.549.162
Tags
Art Historical Context
This 1835 etching captures a tense moment from Scottish history: Sir Robert Melville urging Mary, Queen of Scots to abdicate the throne in 1567. The scene comes from Walter Scott’s “Histoire d’Écosse,” part of his collected works published in French by Furne, Gosselin, and Perrotin. It shows the young queen facing intense political pressure after a series of crises that ultimately led to her forced resignation. Created by designer Eugène-Louis Lami and etcher Pierre-Léonard Dandeleux, the print exemplifies the Romantic era’s fascination with dramatic historical narratives. Etching allowed fin...