Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1879
Original caption: ‘Charlotte Corday, who had tried vainly two or three times to get admitted to see Marat, was overheard by him asking for an interview and he ordered her to be called in … When she entered the room he elicited from her the names of Girondist deputies at Caen. He then said, “They will soon all be guillotined”. Charlotte Corday then stabbed him with a knife, etc.’
The Spectator, 3 May 1879:
… Marat is once more killed by Charlotte Corday, in a work by Mr. Eyre Crowe, A., of which we can only say that it is the most ugly and unpleasant version of the story which we have yet seen.
Illustrated London News, 17 May 1879:
… Returning to the remaining works by R.A.’s or A.R.A.’s, we have to note no novelty of subject or treatment; unless it be in the case of Mr. Eyre Crowe, who represents the Duc d’Enghien cutting off, just before his execution, a lock of his hair for his secretly married wife (943), and Charlotte Corday about to enter the bath-room of Marat (301) – in both cases the unpleasantness of the themes being aggravated by excessive grimness of treatment.
Athenaeum, 31 May 1879:
Marat – 13th July, 1793, is a good design for a subject which has been painted in France a great deal too often, and sufficiently often in England. Marat sits in his bath, writing on a board placed before him. Charlotte Corday, not looking like the inspired heroine whom the Parisian artists depict, pushes open the door at Marat’s call and enters the room. Mr. Crowe has avoided the murder and its accompaniments, and he has represented the light of the room and the numerous accessories with care and skill, so that we may fully depend on them. Is Marat old enough?
Art Journal, August 1879:
The more important figure pictures in the room are the stabbing of Marat by Charlotte Corday (301), from the able pencil of Eyre Crowe, A., and the ‘No Surrender’ (324) … by Andrew C. Gow. There is perhaps a little dryness in Mr. Crowe’s treatment; but both are remarkably able works, and we regret that want of space prevents out lingering over their excellences.
Eyre Crowe (1824-1910) 