Death of Cardinal Beaufort

The subject was taken from Shakespeare's Henry VI part 2, 3, III, where the King, Salisbury and Warwick witness the Cardinal's death. This is probably Reynolds's early version of the subject, which he later repeated on a larger scale and in upright format in 1788 (Petworth House, Sussex). The illustration is taken from an old photograph before the painting was destroyed in the 1944 bombing.