Description: Surtees notes that the model's features are âexaggerated and
almost grotesque.â She goes on to describe the picture, with the figure
âthree-quarter length, standing slightly to the right, wearing grey-white
draperies which leave the massive shoulders and arm partly uncovered. In both hands she holds
the casket bearing the legend âUltima Manet Spesâ, decorated with a spray of flowers and a winged head upturned in profile;
from its nearly closed lid issues a cloud of pink smoke which wreathes itself around Pandora's
heavy dark hair, forming a halo of winged headsâ (
A Catalogue Raisonné
vol. 1, 126).
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This is a replica that DGR executed in 1879 for his friend Watts-Dunton, âwith a fresh system of bogies round the headâ as he wrote Jane Morris (18 March 1878: Bryson 59).
Reception
DGR did a study for this picture in colored chalks; it now is housed in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight.
Bibliography