Conservation work carried out by the National Trust to mark the 300^th anniversary of famed English artist Joshua Reynolds’s birth has revealed a “monstruous figure” in the background of a painting lurking beneath layers of overpaint and varnish. The painting is titled The Death of Cardinal Beaufort (1789) and depicts a scene from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 (first published in 1594), in which King Henry VI laments the death of the cardinal – his great-uncle – and exclaims, “O! beat away the busy, meddling fiend that lays siege unto this wretch’s soul.”

It appears that Reynolds painted this “meddling fiend” – an expression of speech – into the composition, although subsequent conservators applied overpaint and layers of varnish which obscured it from view. In fact, Reynolds’ inclusion of this figure into the painting was controversial at the time of its creation. The work was commissioned by the Shakespeare Gallery in London, and when it first went on view in 1789, critics were not impressed by the additional figure which peers out from behind a curtain. A critic for The Times wrote “the Imp at the Cardinal’s bolster cannot spoil the Picture, but it does no credit to the judgement of the Painter”, continuing that, “the license of Poetry is very different from that of Painting”. Another critic, this one writing for The World, stated that “this conceit is beneath the dignity of the subject and the Artist”, adding that if Shakespeare had deemed this a character in the play, it would have been listed.

Dr John Chu, senior curator of pictures and sculpture at the National Trust, explained more in a statement about why the inclusion of this figure might have been deemed controversial during the eighteenth century. “It didn’t fit in with some of the artistic rules of the times to have a poetic figure of speech represented so literally in this monstruous figure. When it was first shown at the Shakespeare Gallery in 1789 it generated more controversy that any other work on show. While it was considered acceptable in literature to introduce the idea of a demon as something of the mind of a person, to include it visually in a painting gave it too physical a form. There were even people who argued that it should have been painted out”, although Reynolds resisted any temptation to do so.

Chu also explained that this area of the painting was “misunderstood by early conservators”. Becca Hellen, senior conservator for paintings for the National Trust, explained some of the issues with the restoration of the work. “The area with the fiend was especially difficult. Because it is in the shadows, it was painted with earth browns and dark colours which would always dry more slowly, causing shrinkage effects. With Reynolds resinous and waxy mediums and pigments not aiding drying of the paint it was no surprise that the area of the fiend was a challenge. With the layers added by early restorers it had become a mess of misinterpretation and multiple layers of paints.”

Following the sale of the collection of the Shakespeare Gallery in 1805, the painting was bought by George Wyndham, 3^rd Earl of Egremont at Petworth House, which now belongs to the National Trust. The painting has remained there, and the new restoration was unveiled just in time for Halloween – a fitting moment for the monstruous fiend to re-emerge.