After his years spent training in Italy (1709-19), William Kent became the leading architect and designer in England and the artist best placed to benefit from aristocratic and royal patronage. His first Royal commission was to decorate Kensington palace, which he gained in 1722 thanks to the support of Lord Burlington; in 1739 he succeeded Jervas as Principal Painter to George II. His painting was never up to the standard of his other work, something seized upon by rivals, such as Hogarth, envious of his success. Kent’s limitations as a painter are clearly seen in this work. The arrangement is obvious, the drawing absent and the handling bland and nerveless.

The painting is one of a set of three scenes from the life of Henry V (RCINs 402898, 402900 and 402901) presumably executed for Queen Caroline and seen by Horace Walpole in her Dressing Room at St James’s Palace in 1758. Queen Caroline’s payments to Kent ‘for pictures’ in 1730 and 1731 may be for these. A payment to William Waters may have been for the magnificent period frames.

The largest of the scenes, this was presumably first hung as the centrepiece, flanked by the other two, both half the width and slightly less in height, making a triptych arrangement. The other scenes show Henry V meeting the French queen (RCIN 402898) and marrying her daughter, Catherine of Valois (RCIN 402900). This central scene depicts Henry V in the thick of his most famous victory, at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The three are examples of picturesque, inaccurate and slightly triumphalist antiquarianism, loosely evoking Shakespeare’s famous play. In the centre of the painting a French Royal warrior, with the fleur-de-lis on his jupon, is beaten to his knees by Henry V.

Text adapted from The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714-1760, London, 2014.

Signed: 'Wm Kent Pinxt.'