Study for Two Heads in Mary Queen of Scots Escaping Loch Leven Castle

This drawing is a study for a painting depicting the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots from Loch Leven, an island castle in which she had been imprisoned following an uprising against her. It focuses on two of the queen’s attendants. Figure studies like this helped Wilkie work out details of the costume and the facial expressions and gestures with which each figure reacts to the situation in which he places them. The intense gaze of the bearded man and the gasp of the female attendant as she nervously looks back over her shoulder are visceral reactions that palpably convey the danger of the queen’s daring escape (2022).