Blindfolded and dressed in white satin, Lady Jane Grey feels for the block with her hands while an older man in a fur-trimmed cloak guides her. At the right, the executioner stands with his ax, and at the left, two of her ladies collapse in grief. Straw is spread on the floor, and the dark Gothic arches of the room fade into shadow. Lady Jane reigned for just nine days in 1553 as Queen of England before Mary Tudor's faction deposed her, and she was beheaded at the Tower of London on February 12, 1554, aged 17.

In the Salon catalogue of 1834, Paul Delaroche quoted a 1558 text about Protestant martyrs, and the painting shows the moment the blindfolded Jane pleads, "What shall I do? Where is the block?" The National Gallery says it is not accurate in many details; for example, the real execution took place outdoors, not inside as Delaroche shows it. A sensation at the Salon of 1834, with crowds pressing forward to see it, it was bought by Count Anatole Demidoff for 8,000 francs. For decades it was thought destroyed in the Thames flood of 1928, until it was found by chance in the basement of the Tate Gallery in 1973. It is in the National Gallery in London.