Joan of Arc
Category
Photographs
Date
Unknown
Materials
Paper
Measurements
9.125 ins (h)6.175 ins (w)
Order this imageCollection
Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire
NT 1274682
Summary
Bernard Shaw kept this copy of a photograph of the helmeted head of a saint’s statue, believing it to be modelled after Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc, known as “The Maid of Orleans”). The statue was discovered in the ruins of the church of St-Maurice-St-Éloi in Orléans in 1827, and it was long thought to be the head of a statue of Saint Maurice modelled after Jeanne d'Arc, but is now recognised as the head of a statue of Saint George. Shaw wrote his famous play Saint Joan in 1923.Print within gold-coloured mount, and framed in black passé-partout.
Full description
Bernard Shaw kept this copy of a photograph of the head of a saint’s statue, believing it to be modelled after Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc, known as “The Maid of Orleans”). The statue was discovered in the ruins of the church of St-Maurice-St-Éloi in Orléans in 1827, and it was long thought to be the head of a statue of Saint Maurice modelled after Jeanne d'Arc, but is now recognised as the head of a statue of Saint George. Shaw wrote his famous play Saint Joan in 1923. Shaw visited Orleans in 1913 and wrote to Mrs. Patrick Campbell whilst he was there, sending her similar postcards with images, thus providing an insight into his long-standing interest in the figure of Saint Joan. He wrote: “Strangely enough I have never been in Orleans before, though I have been all over the Joan of Arc country. How they canonize her you may see from the previous postcard. I shall do a Joan play some day...” (Shaw to Mrs Patrick Campbell, 8 September 1913, in Bernard Shaw and Mrs Patrick Campbell: Their Correspondence, 1952, p.146). (Alice McEwan, 2020)
Provenance
The Shaw Collection. The house and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust by George Bernard Shaw in 1950, together with Shaw's photographic archive.
Marks and inscriptions
On print below head - Reputed Portrait / of Jeane d'Arc, / formerly in the church of St. Maurice, Orleans.