"The Crown offered to Richard III at Baynard's Castle," by Sigismund Christian Hubert Goetze, 1866-1939

The Crown offered to Richard III at Baynard's Castle

Sigismund Christian Hubert Goetze, 1866-1939

1898

Roberson's spirit fresco

17ft 6in x 11ft

The Royal Exchange

Source: reproduced with permission from"The Gentle Author" (see bibliography)

Clare Willsdon explains that the murals at the new Royal Exchange were intended "to make evenly permanent the passing (but of course highly symbolic) show of the newly revived mayoral procession" (66) Each of the twenty-four frescos, painted by different artists, illustrates in sequence some important event for London's history. [Commentary continues below.]

Photograph reproduced by permission of "The Gentle Author" (see bibliography); text by Jacqueline Banerjee

Please ask permission from this source before reproducing it.

Willsdon also points out that there were "plenty of Continental examples of 'realistic' re-creation of history," and that the murals at the Exchange

can be seen as sharing in the "invention of tradition" identiﬁed by [the historian David] Cannadine and others in the renewal from the late nineteenth century of ancient civic ceremonials.... Through the Exchange project, civic ritual was being translated into what, for the Corporation and the Merccrs, was effectively a "new" medium — pictorial decoration. This process, calling into play all the famed "enterprise" and "energy" of the Londoner, explains much of the character of the Exchange scheme as an experiment, involving mistakes as well as triumphs, but it also underlines the need to evaluate it within its wider historical, social, and political context, rather than merely from an aesthetic angle or as some kind of dusty history painting of no signiﬁcance because apparently remote from avant-garde trends in art. If we are more familiar with "propaganda art" in the context of post-Revolutionary Russia, early twentieth-century Mexico, or "New Deal" North America, the Exchange scheme shows that murals were already fulﬁlling a related function in the 1890s and 1900s in Britain. [66]

As for Goetze's contribution, notice that, while the king himself is important enough, the Mayor is equally or more so, "standing [or rather, kneeling?] in the centre foreground with his City sceptre prominently displayed," as he "intercedes on behalf of Richard III" (67).

Related Material

Bibliography

"The Gentle Author." "Save the Royal Exchange Murals!". Web. 22 July 2018.

"Leighton and the Middle East" (about Lord Leighton's fresco in the sequence, Phoenicians Bartering with Ancient Britons. Web. 22 July 2018.

Willsdon, Clare A. P. Mural Painting in Britain 1840-1940: Image and Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Created 22 July 2018 2010