King Henry IV wants to mount a crusade, but has to postpone plans when he learns that Edmund Mortimer has been captured by the Welsh rebel leader Glyndwr. Several of these paintings place emphasis on one of Shakespeare’s great characters, Sir John Falstaff, who reappears in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Although of less significance in European painting as a whole, these paintings are significant in the history of history painting in Britain, and efforts to produce distinctively British art. Henry IV came to the throne in 1399, after he had overthrown and imprisoned King Richard II.Īs a piece of English history, these plays have been painted almost exclusively by British artists, and those who settled in Britain. These provide a fairly liberal account of events during the reign of this King of England and Wales, but not Scotland, between the months prior to the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, and Henry’s death in 1413, almost two centuries before Shakespeare wrote these plays in 15-98. This week I look at paintings of two of William Shakespeare’s most popular history plays, the two parts of Henry IV.
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