The Queen of the May (1879)

Medium: oil

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1879

Examiner, 17 May 1879:

A hard, vulgarly coloured, and supremely ugly picture of a blowsy girl with black hair (the May Queen) in a donkey-cart led by a clown.

Athenaeum, 31 May 1879:

We are much less attracted by The Queen of the May (1041) [than by Execution of the Duc d’Enghien], which shows a party of rough fellows, comprising one dressed as a clown, who lead an unlovely girl in a common cart, This is far from being one of the painter’s best pictures.

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