Quentin Durward and the Disguised Louis XI (recto); Study of male figure (verso)
1825–26
Medium
Watercolor and gouache (bodycolor) over graphite
Dimensions
sheet: 5 3/4 x 4 1/4 in. (14.6 x 10.8 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Jeffrey L. Berenson, Charles and Jessie Price and Catherine G. Curran Gifts, 2004
Accession Number
2004.102
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate watercolor by Richard Parkes Bonington captures a tense encounter from Sir Walter Scott’s 1823 novel *Quentin Durward*. The recto shows the young Scottish hero confronting the disguised King Louis XI of France, a pivotal moment in the story’s exploration of power, loyalty, and intrigue during the late medieval period. Though small in scale—barely larger than a postcard—the composition conveys drama through expressive gestures and the glint of swords, reflecting Bonington’s skill at distilling narrative tension into intimate formats. Working in the 1820s, Bonington was a leading ...
About the Artist
Richard Parkes Bonington · 1802–1828
Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828) was a British painter and watercolorist who, despite dying at the age of twenty-five, produced a body of work that had a profound and lasting influence on French and British painting. Born in Arnold, near Nottingham, he moved with his family to Calais and then Paris in 1817, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under Antoine-Jean Gros and copied Old Mas...