John William Godward R.B.A.

A beautiful Pompeian lady stands at the draped portal to her sumptuous apartment, perhaps beckoning her suitor to enter.  One hand pushes the purple and gold brocade drape aside as the other grasps her amber necklace.  She wears a moss-green tunic with golden stola and scarlet ribbons.  Inside her room is very rare ocular window with a thin slice of variegated onyx allowing the light to filter through it.

About this time Godward painted a number of oils utilizing the deep sensuous reds and blacks typical of Pompeian painted plaster walls and interiors (see Lesbia with Her Sparrow, 1916).  The marble table on the back wall has a lion head and leg upright very similar to his The Toilette (1900), where Godward fully painted the nude form of the lady then carefully painted the Liberty silk tunic over her body.  The artist painted this theme several times with very different compositions (see A Pompeian Lady, 1891, 1901, 1905).