Queen Knighting Man

About

Queen Knighting Man also known as Woman Blessing Knight is an exploitable object-labeling and redraw meme based on the 1901 painting "The Accolade" by British painter Edmund Leighton. The painting depicts a woman knighting a man dressed in armor bearing the Henry VI the Good's coat of arms, and is part of a series of paintings by Leighton that depict the idea of "chivalry." The painting is used to make memes about bestowing knowledge or objects upon other people, with the woman, the sword and the knight being the subject of labels.

Origin

British painter Edmund Blair Leighton painted "The Accolade" in 1901, depicting a young queen bestowing an accolade, a ceremony to confer knighthood.^[1]

While the exact origin of object labelling memes using the image is unknown, redraws of painting can be traced back as early as March 22nd, 2017, when Tumblr^[2] user @lothlenan posted a Legend of Zelda version of the image. The post gathered over 25,000 notes in seven years (seen below

The image and the original painting were posted side-by-side to Reddit's /r/Breath_of_the_Wild on October 27th, 2018, where it gathered over 8,000 notes.^[3]

Spread

On November 19, 2019, Redditor^[4] /u/CommanderJeb04 posted a version of the meme to /r/funny, where the monarch was labelled as "My Mom," the knight as "the Japanese waiter" and the sword as "gracias." The post gathered over 8,000 upvotes in five years (seen below, left). On November 23rd, 2019, Redditor^[5] /u/GreatoneX2 posted a version of the meme to /r/wholesomememes. gathering over 5,000 upvotes in five years (seen below, right).

On August 31st, 2021, Redditor^[6] /u/Yeetimus526 posted a version of the meme to /r/dankmemes, gathering over 8,000 notes in three years (seen below, left). On February 19th, 2022, Twitter^[7] user @castlexcreature posted an edited version of the meme to X / Twitter, gathering over 7,000 notes in two years (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References