Eleanora Sucking the Venom out of the Wound of Her Husband, King Edward I

In this painting, Eleanora saves her husband by sucking poison from his wound after an assassination attempt during the Crusades. A copy after a work in a private collection, it depicts an apocryphal story that became popular following the London premiere of James Thomson’s tragic play The History of the Life and Reign of Valiant Prince Edward… and His Princess Eleonora in 1739. Angelica Kauffman was among the first artists in London to present subjects drawn from Anglo-Saxon and medieval history. Her treatment of this theme reflects the 18th-century fascination with the Crusades, understood not only as crucial episodes of medieval history but also as religious wars that brought Europe into contact with the cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean. In this context, the scene evokes an imagined past shaped by emerging Orientalist interests,
presenting the Eastern Mediterranean through the lens of the 18th-century European imagination.