Drusilla by John William Godward

The lyricism of musical representations and the fascination with the ritual accessories of Roman Antiquity animate this composition of great expressive delicacy. Through the scene entitled “Drusilla”, the innovative master John William Godward highlights a young bacchante in a moment of poetic suspension. The canvas becomes the receptacle of a rigorous research into chromatic contrasts and the materiality of pleated fabrics, affirming the decorative genius of the English Aesthetic school.

A young woman with a fair complexion and swept-up dark hair faces the viewer, wearing a wreath of black and green ivy in her hairstyle. She wears a fine semi-transparent orange-red tunic that subtly reveals the contours of her torso, completed by a wide plum drapery tied around her hips. With her lowered right hand, she firmly holds a large wooden tambourine decorated with geometric patterns inlaid with light mother-of-pearl. Her left hand is placed with confidence on her left hip. She leans against a wall of immaculate white marble, whose base integrates wide panels veined with ochre, brown, and orange.

The artist’s pictorial mastery reaches a pinnacle in the neat opposition between the pearly shine of the instrument and the matte quality of the satin skin. His expert use of oil paint confers an exceptional tactile realism of rare perfection upon the light draperies and the complex veins of the polished marble. This exceptional artisanal expertise bears witness to absolute technical virtuosity.