The Death of Cardinal Beaufort (1377-1447) (from William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II, Act III, Scene iii)

Reynolds's Death of Cardinal Beaufort from around 1789 was one of his contributions to John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery — the most ambitious project of cultural patronage in Georgian Britain, which commissioned the leading painters of the day to illustrate all of Shakespeare's plays. Reynolds's choice of this scene from Henry VI, Part II — where the dying cardinal is haunted by visions of his crimes, particularly his role in the execution of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester — reflected his interest in the psychological drama of guilt and mortality rather than the more theatrical battle scenes that some of his contemporaries preferred. The commission gave Reynolds an opportunity to practise the history painting that his Discourses championed as the highest artistic genre, a form he had pursued relatively rarely alongside his dominant portraiture practice. The painting was completed in 1789, the year Reynolds's failing eyesight forced him to cease painting — making it one of his last major finished works and a summary of his historical ambitions. Now in a National Trust property, the canvas demonstrates the energy Reynolds brought to serious subject matter even in the closing weeks of his active career.

This work demonstrates Joshua Reynolds's command of Romantic-period painting techniques.