The Judgement by Paula Rego

The Judgement by Paula Rego is a hand coloured, edition variable, etching.
 
The print was published by the artist in 2020 from a plate originally created in 1991 in an edition of 50.
 
Paper size: 43 x 48 cm
Image size: 30 x 34 cm
 
The one we have is number 10 of 50 it is framed in an antique style gilt wood frame.
 
 
This is one of Rego’s more elaborate and enigmatic creations, full of references to other works. Executed at the same time as Crivelli’s Garden, her mural in the National Gallery Restaurant in London, it contains some of the same imagery, such as the head of Rudi Nassauer (also used for Joseph’s Dream 1990) and the use of Renaissance architecture.
 
The lion harks back to There was a Man of Double Deed 1989, and looks forward to the dog in Old Mother Hubbard 1994.
 
Although of modest size, it could in its complex organization and proliferation of images, be the cartoon for a tapestry or mural. Rego also calls this work The Trial, but adds:
 
“I’m not sure whose trial. I know that the judge is a ram, a recently married one because he’s got a wedding veil on his head. There’s a cart behind, the kind that you push along and exhibit at fairs. In it are performers, one of whom is Rudi patting his dog. And facing him is Mrs Death who later appears in Jane Eyre. And around it are various medieval and mythological figures.....I used the same kinds of devices for Crivelli’s Garden. Of having several things, several sizes, happening at once. There’s a stage within a stage.”
 
It is indeed a very inventive and theatrical work. A dinosaur-hippo disports itself in a pond in the background. A woman is involved in an intense relationship with the man on horseback. A man dressed like Dante, with a bird of prey on his left hand, is being gently restrained by a large lion. Here are great riches, beautifully deployed and bursting with life.