108.8 cm × 153 cm (42.8 in × 60 in)
Wikimedia Commons
Claude Duval is a history painting
Artistic genre characterised by its depiction of a moment in a story usually taken from Greek or Roman mythology, or the Bible, in an elevated and morally edifying manner. by the English artist William Powell Frith, created in 1860 and exhibited in the Royal Academy that year.[1] It depicts the 17th-century gentleman highwayman, Claude Duval
Highwayman who, according to popular legend, showed courtesy to his victims and chivalry to their womenfolk, thus spawning the myth of the romantic highwayman., holding up a coach on a heath.
The subject is taken from The History of England by Thomas Babington Macaulay.[2] Frith began making sketches for it while he was on holiday in Weymouth in 1858. The central female character depicted is Lady Aurora Sydney.[3] Reputedly, Duval gallantly asked her to dance a courante with him rather than rob her, which they appear to be in the act of doing.[4] Behind them in the carriage is the slumped figure of a young woman who has fainted.[5]
The painting was donated to the Manchester Art Gallery by James Gresham in 1917, and remains in their collection today.[6]
