Queen Katherine and Patience

Since the end of the 18th century there had been a massive revival of interest in the works of Shakespeare, and many artists exhibited paintings that illustrated scenes from his plays. Here Leslie depicts Act III, Scene 1 from Henry VIII. The picture shows Henry's first wife, Katherine of Aragon (Shakespeare's 'Queen Katharine'), in a melancholy mood because of the King's growing estrangement. When the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842, a quotation from the play, as well as the title of the picture, was given in the catalogue.

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Although Leslie based his representation of Queen Katherine on contemporary portraits, he was not strictly archaeological. Like most of his fellow artists in the 1840s, he tended to mingle various styles and periods. What we would now regard as separate historical styles, and identify as 'late medieval', 'Renaissance', 'Jacobean' and so on, artists then saw as one style, which they simply called 'Old English'.