Her Most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace, 1865. Oil on canvas; 47 x 84 inches (119.4 x 213.4 cm). Collection of Leeds Art Gallery, accession no. LEEAG.PA.1903.0201. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This large multi-figured composition of a court scene in the fifteenth century was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1866, no. 24, where it achieved considerable success. The Art Journal felt this was the most important work Calderon had exhibited to that point:
Mr. Calderon, who has already won the badge of Associate, puts forth his greatest work. The picture he now exhibits was not in time for last year's exhibition; it therefore is the product of two years, and has advantage of corresponding maturity. Her Most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace (24) will indeed be accepted as a pledge of no ordinary power. There is about the works of Mr. Calderon that savoir faire which is more striking in French and continental than in English schools, that quality best designated by the word "cleverness," that pictorial adroitness which knows how to throw fact into Art form. Mr. Calderon has barbed his weapons with the keen point of satire. The picture, indeed, is painted at the expense of "her most puissant Grace"; it is a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the divine right of monarchs. Here is a little lady – a child empress – walking in state, attended by a long array of courtiers, who preserve mock solemnity. This little dot of a queen, who recalls the dolls of the royal house of Spain painted by Velasquez, has been decked with diadem, and her train, double her own length, is upborne with due obeisance. The infant-queen reaches the corner where a body of burly trumpeters proclaim her approach. The mockery at this point reaches its climax.
Having explained the story, and the way Calderon has treated it, the reviewer proceeds to add some words of criticism:
The essence of the satire is the insignificant stature of "Her Grace," therefore it became a paramount aim to dwarf the figure by all possible expedients. This end, it will be observed, is consulted by giving size to the other figures, high and wide dimensions to the architecture; and even the tapestry, not unlike that at Hampton Court, by its huge elephants bearing monstrous winged creatures, tends to the same result. This tapestry also, together with the carpet on the floor and the procession itself, all enhance the perspective distance and the far reach of the corridor. We need scarcely remark that such a picture is of pronounced character, that the heads have determined individuality and expression. The colour, as befits even a parody on state pageantry, is sumptuous. The rich and varied costumes of the fifteenth century impart to the scene splendour and picturesque piquancy. The picture, in its prominent position in the large room, tells with power and tempered lustre. [16]
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum quite rightly predicted that this would be one of the most popular works shown at the Royal Academy that year:
Mr. Calderon's picture Her Most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace (24), has a capital and original subject; he has treated it with extraordinary spirit and much humour. Its colouring is singularly and felicitously brilliant; it is wealthy in incident, and charmingly apt in expression; on the whole, we cannot doubt that this will be one of the most popular items of the Exhibition. The scene is the arras-hung corridor of a royal palace, through which a state procession moves; the little lady of the land - a queen of eight years old - at its head; she walks stately, but not without some childish nervousness, and heeds with proper gravity the profound salutations of those who, standing at the side of the gallery, bend low, uncover and show their obsequiousness before her small Mightiness's most infantine person; among these, the lowest to bend is an old man, who, staff in one hand, leans on the shoulder of a page-boy, who does not stoop at all. The Queen's golden skirts are upheld by two adult ladies-in-waiting; the grey governess is close by; a damsel flirts with a lordly attendant in the most open manner. Others follow, showing that the whole affair has a spice of comedy in it, notwithstanding the impressive blast of the trumpets, which hails the great lady passing in front. [603]
A critic for The Builder, however, felt this work was a waste of Calderon's talents: "Mr. P. H. Calderon, A.R.A., asserts his claim to the possession of all the accomplishments that are requisite to the perfect success of the spectacular department in any drama he may choose to mount; but 'the play's the thing,' after all; and it is disappointing, to say the least of it, to see such good actors as Mr. Calderon's able management might make of them, in procession as an escort to Her Most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace (24), simply to show that his aristocratic ladies in the splendid fifteenth-century habiliments can look as if they lived in that time, and that for executive power, he, as a painter, would have adorned any. [360]
A reviewer for The Illustrated London News considered this work a very "pretty fancy":
"Mr. Calderon has not continued to dedicate his pencil to such dramatic or pathetic themes as some he recently treated; he now seems to have primarily sought to gratify his artistic sense in courtly pageantry of historic costume or pleasant aspects of nature and the brightest beauty and expression of womanhood. But for mellow, glowing harmony of rich colour, he was never seen to such great advantage as in his principal work this year, entitled 'Her Most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace'. It must be admitted, also, that the subject of this picture is a very pretty fancy. It represents a child-queen or princess of the fourteen or fifteenth century walking in stately procession, her coronet on her head – perhaps just crowned – along the tapestried stone hall or corridor of a castle, or may be a church aisle, her white-and-gold embroidered train borne by handsome maids of honour, with the conical or horned head-dresses of the period, followed by gaily attired courtiers, male and female, stalwart warriors, and grave State functionaries. Grouped round steps towards which she advances, and at which are posted heralds proclaiming her approach, are other Court attendants, including an aged senator-like figure, a young noble, and a page-boy, with the arms of the family, to whom he belongs embroidered on his breast. It is pleasant to see the grave yet frightened look of her small Majesty, whilst her adult subjects know not how to bow sufficiently low to her little Highness – the contrasts affording a graceful commentary on the vanity of human distinctions. Though, probably, not intended to represent any particular incident, yet marriage contracts as well as such semblance of reigning at a very tender age were not infrequent ceremonies about the period of, say, our Richard II" (74).
The Spectator praised Calderon's draughtsmanship, composition skills, and his colour in this work:
Mr. Calderon has an unusual faculty for combining strength with grace in composition, and his color, though bright, is never garish. Her Grace (24), a girl queen, very much in her minority, going in procession on some state occasion, attended by her court, is a good-humoured satire by the same artist, which, though veiled under the picturesque costume of bygone times, is not yet wholly inapplicable. The boy who looks on and, being nearest an age to "her grace,"" finds most difficulty in bowing the knee to her, and the sexagenarian chamberlain, who treats the whole performance as a matter of political business, are noticeable points of character in the picture. It is firmly drawn and painted, and easily composed. [522]
The critic of The Saturday Review felt, in terms of execution, that no painting done in Europe that year surpassed Calderon's painting:
"The secret of producing interesting pictures seems, however, to be fully possessed by a younger artist, Mr. Calderon. Nothing in human nature is more wonderful than its loyalty to high rank, even when the personage is, as a mere human being, from the feebleness of infancy or the decrepitude of age, inferior to those who revere him. When a painter seizes on some profound instinct of humanity, and vividly illustrates it by some happily chosen incident or example, he is likely to produce a work of more than ephemeral interest. Mr. Calderon has had one of those happy ideas which only occur to genius. Her Most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace is a little royal lady passing in state along a mediaeval corridor, hailed by trumpeters stationed on her way, and followed by a noble escort of fair ladies and gallant gentlemen. The heroine of the picture is a little child, rather frightened by the duties of her great position, but resolved to go through them as well as she possibly can. Age and youth alike bow before her, but she holds steadily on her way with a stiff and constrained deportment, the triumph of discipline over the easy grace of childhood. Painting has rarely read us a deeper lesson in political philosophy. "O, wonderful instinct of loyalty!" Mr. Calderon says to us with his brush – "O, astonishing eagerness to be deferential! Here is a little ignorant child in the nursery, and when she goes forth in state loud trumpet blasts announce her coming, and grey heads bow low before her!" But the painter has put yet another suggestion into his work; the face of the little queen is so very sweet and innocent that we are reminded of the respect we owe to childhood, and surely she is the person there best entitled to our homage, for the ladies who carry her train have a courtly, worldly air, but she looks like a little cherub taking on itself the burden of earthly queendom. It is a curious fact, yet one quite in accordance with reason and probability, that when an artist is thoroughly happy in his subject, and interested by it, the mere material execution of his work is always better than when he paints things he does not much care about. Here, for instance, in this picture of Mr. Calderon's, merely because the subject has pleased and excited him, there is a vivacity and truth in the execution above his usual average. It is probable that, merely as execution, no better piece of painting has been done in Europe this year than Mr. Calderon's child-queen. There is certainly nothing superior to it in the Exhibition; it is entirely satisfactory. [688]
G. A. Storey in The Magazine of Art felt this work, in itself, justified Calderon's election to the Royal Academy:
In 1866 Calderon justified his election as Associate of the Royal Academy by his picture of a child-queen with a long train passing through tapestried gallery, heralded by trumpeters, and followed by stately and beautiful women in the rich costume of the fifteenth century. This he called Her Most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace. It was another of the artis's own inventions, and was not only a success at the Academy, but in the Paris International Exhibition the year following, where it obtained the only gold medal awarded to English art. This work is full of excellence, both of drawing and colour and presentment of character. Some of the female heads are extremely beautiful, for Calderon could paint a beautiful and distinguished face, and a very loveable one. [450]
Bibliography
"Art. The Royal Academy." The Spectator XXXIX (May 12, 1866): 523-24.
"Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Builder XXIV (May 19, 1866): 360-61.
"Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News XLVIII (May 12, 1866): 74.
"Pictures of the Year." The Saturday Review XXI (June 9, 1866): 688-89.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series V (June 1, 1866): 161-72.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2010 (May 5, 1866): 602-03.
Storey, George Adolphus. "Philip Hermogenes Calderon, R.A." The Magazine of Art XXII (1898): 446-52. [Whole text in the Victorian Web]
Created 28 October 2014
Image and most of the commentary added 13 July 2023