A Pompeian Lady

John William Godward

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British RBA [1861-1922]

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A POMPEIAN LADY; 1904

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oil on canvas

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diameter 24 in. (61 cm)

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signed & dated; titled on plaque

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Provenance: Sir Alfred Bird (1849-1922], Politician and Arts Patron, Tudor Grange, Solihull (Trustee label verso); Thomas McLean, Dealer in Works of Art, No. 7 Haymarket, London (label verso); The Cooling Galleries London, 5 Temperance Street, Toronto (partial label verso); Former collection of Maurice and Louella Brown, by descent in 1982 to Keith C. Brown (now deceased) and L. Joan Brown, Calgary. This painting has been in the Brown family collection for many decades.

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John William Godward is an important Pre-Raphaelite / Neo-Classicist painter, known for his striking portraits of beautiful woman in classical settings, with technically meticulous renderings of architecture and texture - flesh, diaphenous fabric, marble, animal skin.

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"He was the best of the last great European painters to straight-forwardly embrace classical Greece and Rome in their art. Herein lies his significance to art history. With him and his colleagues, we see the nightfall of five hundred years of Classical subject painting in Western art." - excerpt from "John William Godward, The Eclipse of Classicism" (Dr. Vern Grosvenor Swanson; 1997)