In 2009 it was rediscovered in Scotland in an unexpectedly good condition, having been rolled up and stored after the war, but recorded in the intervening years as badly damaged or destroyed.

The painting depicts Charles in the days before his execution, being bullied and taunted by Cromwell's defiant troops, one of whom is blowing pipe smoke in his face.

[1][3][4][5] While stored safe and dry in Mertoun, over the next 68 years the existence of the painting was gradually forgotten about by its owners, and presumed by the art world to be lost as irreparably damaged in the raid.

[1][2][3][7] After moving the painting to London, it was restored sufficiently to be able to be displayed in the exhibition, albeit with the shrapnel scars still visible, and "somewhat yellowed by a layer of discoloured varnish".

[1][2][3] It went on display on 23 February in a separate room in the museum's free admission area, with the main part of the exhibition held in the adjacent Sainsbury Wing of the gallery.

[2] According to the gallery director Nicholas Penny, the rediscovery was "huge" and its redisplay would be an historic moment, describing it as "an extraordinarily powerful work", "one of the great French paintings" and by "one of the greatest painters" of the 19th century.

[3][5] According to Penny, Delaroche, a Frenchman, was a notable painter of Tudor and Stuart history, as a method of "exploring the violence and vicissitudes of the French Revolution" without actually portraying the events themselves, which were regarded as too recent to paint.

[8] Riopelle added that Delaroche's "obsession with English royalist history" was "classic displacement of what you want to talk about but can't, because it's still so raw and recent", particularly referring to the execution of Louis XVI of France in January 1793, and nine months later of his Queen Marie Antoinette.

[6] Charlotte Higgins of The Guardian described it as "one of Delaroche's masterpieces", which "owes a debt" to Anthony van Dyck's famous painting of Charles I.