Edith Recovering Harold's Body after the Battle of Hastings

The painting shows a famous scene as Edith the Fair, accompanied by some monks, scoured the battlefield for her husband, the fallen Harold. Edith, in the company of an older woman, and a monk, both point to the dead body of the king. He is lying in a broken palisade, partially naked, with a sheet hiding his face which has been disfigured by an arrow.^[2]

British historical themes were very fashionable in France during the Restoration era, particularly those of Walter Scott. Vernet produced several paintings including this one.^[3]

It was one of several historical paintings Vernet exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1827.^[4] In 1828 it was exhibited in London at William Armfield Hobday's gallery in Pall Mall.^[5] Today it is in the collection of Musée Thomas-Henry in Cherbourg.^[6]

• Fahy, Everett (ed.) The Wrightsman Pictures. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005.
• Harkett, Daniel & Hornstein, Katie (ed.) Horace Vernet and the Thresholds of Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture. Dartmouth College Press, 2017.
• Ruutz-Rees, Janet Emily. Horace Vernet. Scribner and Welford, 1880.