John William Godward, R.B.A. (1861-1922)

A classically draped girl examines a bracelet in a marble clad interior. Owing to the Athenian helmet and shield behind her, we may conclude that she is Greek rather than Roman. On the bronze table beside her are an array of carefully chosen objects: a cameo vase, a glass ointment jar, and a silver casket for jewellery. The bronze winged victory holding a laurel wreath is strikingly similar to Sir Arthur Gilbert's figure of Victory, first exhibited in 1887, two years before this picture was painted, but was probably also inspired by late nineteenth-century edited reductions by Chiurazzi & Fils, Naples, of an antique sculpture of Winged Victory excavated at Pompeii.