Recent news that restorers had uncovered the image of a Gothic-looking demon in a late work by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) seems fitting for these long, dark evenings. The sinister face hovers above the head of a dying clergyman in The Death of Cardinal Beaufort, painted in 1789.
Fake-or-Fortune-style reveals such as this, where Reynolds’s hollow-eyed fiend re-emerges, fanged and uncanny from the gloom of centuries of overpainting, are always popular with the public. But what are we to make of Reynolds’s devilish detail in his painting, and how does it fit into the larger story of demonic representation in the art and literature of the 18th century?
First of all, we can be sure that the painted demon was put there by Reynolds because it was much discussed at the time. The scene of the dying cardinal comes from Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part II. Witnessing bedside the death throes of Beaufort – a corrupt, mad and guilt-ridden figure – King Henry beseeches God to drive away “the busy meddling fiend / That lays strong siege unto this wretch’s soul”.
