Delaroche's Controversial "Charles I Insulted" Being Restored for Display

The famous 1837 canvas of Hippolyte Delaroche, popularly called Paul Delaroche, depicting the harassment of the British Monarch, Charles the First in the hands of Cromwell's troops is finally being restored by the National Gallery professionals. The painting which was assumed to be nearly spifflicated when a German air raid in May, 1941, in London bombed the Scottish Ellesmere family's Bridgewater House located at St James, creating a 3m deep crater outside the house. The 2.92 by 2.84 meters painting supposedly adorned a dining room wall of the mansion remained enshrouded ever since, until retrieved early this year.

According to reports, the painting was immediately shifted to the family's country house in Merton along the Scottish borders, after the bombing. It was removed from its wooden framework on which the canvas was stretched and stored in a rolled up position until the Gallery personnel found it this year with guidance from the Duke of Sutherland. The painting was taken up for repairing in June and has been repaired of its 200 tears and lead shell damage since then. As per National Gallery director Nicholas Penny, the painting is unexpectedly "almost entirely legible and has lost none of its emotive intensity", with only a slight yellowish discoloration.

The oil on canvas will be on display in the main building next year from 24th February to 23rd May. Charles I Insulted by Cromwell's Soldiers will be housed with Delaroche's other work, also heavily froth with controversy, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833), which also enjoyed a celebrated rediscovery in 1973, after it was believed to be destroyed by the great flood of 1928. The painting showing a blindfolded Lady Jane Grey, being aided to put down her head on the wooden execution block as an expectant axeman awaits, was literally attacked by visitors, thus, compelling the gallery authorities to raise a balustrade around it. "Charles I Insulted" portrays the king in a very 'Jesus being taunted by the romans' like condition surrounded by Cromwell's soldiers, which is not a semblance much appreciated by many. However, Penny opines that, "Delaroche is one of the greatest 19th-century painters. We think it will create a sensation: it is an extraordinarily powerful work."