Charles IX and Catherine de' Medici Inquiring After Coligny

This painting by the German artist Georg Wilhelm Volkhart, executed in 1849 and held at the Hämeenlinna Art Museum in Finland, depicts Charles IX and Catherine de' Medici coming to inquire after admiral Coligny, victim of an assassination attempt on 22 August 1572, two days before the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Wounded in the arm by an arquebus shot fired from a house belonging to the Guises, Coligny received a visit from the king himself, who came to promise him justice — a scene of royal solicitude rendered bitter by subsequent events, since this same Coligny was to be assassinated two days later on the order of the royal council. Painted nearly three centuries after the events, this nineteenth-century work illustrates its era's taste for dramatic scenes drawn from French history, here charged with a tragic irony that the artist and his public could hardly have ignored.