John William Godward, R.B.A.

The Leger Galleries, London, October 1974, where acquired by a private collector;
Their sale, Sotheby's, New York, 22 October 2009, lot 41, where purchased by the present owner 

Vern Swanson, John William Godward, The Eclipse of Classicism, 1997, p.189, no.8, also illustrated pl.25. p.51 (as Young Woman)

STRUCTURE This picture is unlined and in excellent original condition. There are no signs of craquelure and the paint surface appears to be clean and stable. There is a very minor surface abrasion in the lower left corner. The picture is ready to hang. UNDER ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT There are no obvious signs of retouching. FRAME This picture is presented in an attractive neo-classical-style frame.
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'...the best and the most serious of Alma-Tadema's followers was John William Godward... All his life he devoted himself only to classical subjects, invariably involving girls in classical robes on marble terraces, but painted with a degree of technical mastery that almost rivals that of Alma-Tadema. Godward was also an admirer of Lord Leighton, and his figures do sometimes achieve a monumentality lacking in the work of most of Alma-Tadema's followers.'
(Christopher Wood, Olympian Dreamers, Victorian Classical Painters 1860-1914, 1983, p.247)

In John William Godward’s luxurious depictions of delicately clothed female figures within neo-classical marble settings, the artist showed himself the undoubted master after Lawrence Alma-Tadema. His feeling for texture could on occasion rival Alma-Tadema and the modelling of his figures indeed surpass him. The present work displays Godward’s technical mastery and devoid of narrative, is an exquisite exercise in aesthetic concerns, coming close to sharing Albert Moore's compositions of the late 1860s and early 1870s, which feature a lone draped female figure in subtle contrapposto presented in a vertical format. In Beauty in a Marble Room, the attention is on the Roman maiden’s curvaceous body, warm skin tones and auburn hair, which contrast with the geometric lines of the cool marble behind her, as do the loose folds and translucent quality of her dress, beautifully and skilfully rendered. Her polka dot stola adds another point of contrast and is one of the last of its kind to feature in Godward’s paintings, having featured previously in such works as Daydreams (Paul Mellon Centre for British Studies) and  Yes or No? (Hessiches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt). 

Commenting on Godward’s work Elizabeth Prettejohn wrote: ‘The ancient setting and accessories are an essential component of the picture's mood of distanced sensuality... The tensions between antique remoteness and "life like" rendering of textures, between cold marble and soft flesh, between abstract design and sensual appeal are essential to the picture's impact’ (Imagining Rome, British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century, exhibition catalogue for Bristol City Art Gallery, 1996, p.168).

The model for the work is most likely Lily Pettigrew. Together with her sisters, Hetty and Rose, they were the leading artist models of their day, used by Millais, Whistler, Poynter, Leighton, Holman Hunt, Walter Sickert, Augustus John and Philip Wilson Steer. As Rose Pettigrew recalled, ‘every exhibition had a picture of at least one of the ‘beautiful Miss Pettigrews’, as we were called' (quoted in Bruce Laughton, Autobiographical transcript of Rose Pettigrew, 1971, p.116).

‘...my sister Lily was lovely. She had [the] most beautiful curly red gold hair, violet eyes, a beautiful mouth, classic nose and beautifully shaped face, long neck, well set and a most exquisite figure; in fact, she was perfection’
(Bruce Laughton, op. cit., p.116).