Lot 326: Alfred W. Elmore, R.A. (1815-1881)

Mary Queen of Scots and Christopher Norton at Bolton Castle signed 'A Elmore' (lower right) oil on canvas laid down on board 471/2 x 71 in. (120.6 x 180.4 cm.) EXHIBITION London, Royal Academy, 1875, No.211. NOTES As with many of the pictures that Alfred Elmore exhibited at the Royal Academy he included an elaborated title in the form of a brief narrative. Elmores decribes the present picture thus 'One day when the Queen of Scots, in winter, had been sitting at the window-side, knitting of a work-and after the board was covered, she rose and went to the fireside, and, making haste to have the work finished, would not lay it away, but worked at it the time she was warming herself.... called to me to hold her work, who was looking at my Lord Scrope and Sir Francis Knollys playing chess. I went, thinking I had deserved no blame, and that it should not have become me to have refused to do it, my Lady Scrope standing there, and many gentlemen in the chamber.... Two years later the poor youth was under the knife of the executioner at Tyburn.'.