Restorers found a hidden demon in an 18th-century painting

In an eighteenth-century painting they found a painted-over demon with fangs. It took restorers six months to restore the canvas to its original form. Job Joshua Reynolds’ The Death of Cardinal Beaufort was initially criticized for its depiction of an “unclean” figure in shadow, and the artist removed it.

In preparation for the 300th anniversary of artist Joshua Reynolds, restorers were able to restore the original plot of the painting “The Death of Cardinal Beaufort,” The New York Times reports. The painting was controversial when it was first shown in 1789 due to the demon lurking in the shadows.

“It took restoration artist Sophie Reddington six months to discover where the demon had been painted over and piece together the painting’s story,” said exhibition curator Emily Knight. She noted that the restoration made everything in the painting clearer, including the facial expressions of the men in the background and the cardinal’s fist clutching the sheet.

The painting depicts an episode from Shakespeare’s historical play, which takes place in the era of King Henry VI, who inherited the thrones of England and France. He witnesses the death of Cardinal Beaufort, a scene depicted in the painting. The monarch begs God for the peaceful repose of the cardinal, his great-uncle, and declares: “Oh! Drive away the villain.”

When the painting was shown at the Shakespeare Gallery in 1789, the depiction of the demon upset some viewers who felt it should not have been included because it was not a character in Shakespeare’s play. According to Emily Knight, at the time, “it was simply inappropriate to depict something physically otherworldly.”

The National Trust’s senior curator of paintings and sculpture, John Chu, said in a press release that the painting generated more controversy at the time than any other work on display.

“There were even people who argued that it should have been painted over,” comments Chu, referring to the painted demon, “although records of conversations with the artist show that he resisted such attempts to change the work.”

The senior curator explained that although in literature “it was considered acceptable to present the idea of ​​a demon as something in the mind of a person, but to include it visually in a picture gave it too physical a form.”

When the painting was first exhibited, one critic from the London Times suggested that “some villain was besieging Sir Joshua’s taste.” Another critic in the monthly literary journal Analytical Review declared that “the ludicrous villainy of the demon destroys the horror which is the soul of the scene.” A newspaper review of the painting states that the depiction of the demon “does no credit to the artist.”

“Reynolds was difficult for conservators to understand because of the experimental way in which he worked,” says National Trust senior national art conservator Becca Hellen. She added that earlier restorers had added layers of paint, turning The Death of Cardinal Beaufort into a “mess of misinterpretation.”

The otherworldly creature was eventually hidden under layers of paint and varnish, creating mystery around the painting until the demon reappeared in 2023 following a National Trust restoration project.

After the artist’s death, the Shakespeare Gallery exhibited a second version of the painting, from which the controversial character was excluded. In 1805, the Earl of Egremont bought The Death of Cardinal Beaufort and his family donated their art collection to the National Trust.

The picture, however, had not only critics – there were also defenders. Among them was Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who wrote in 1791 that by including a demon in the plot, the author of the picture “attempted to expand the alphabet of pictorial language.”

Mark Aronson, deputy director and chief conservator of the Yale Center for British Art, said the work of England’s leading 18th-century portrait painter was “extremely difficult” to restore due to his technique. At the same time, Aronson noted that the restoration was very “satisfactory.”

“Looking at the before and after photos,” he emphasizes, “I think we were able to get rid of those very thick layers of yellow varnish and get back to a much brighter and more accurate painting.”