Portrait of Mistress T. as Circe

For this second portrait of Mistress T –see previous here– I was requested by the lady herself to give free rein to my imagination, which I of course enjoy. Though it is not quite as free as it sounds, as the subject matter still needs to please her, and so it can’t go totally out to the furthest reaches of my imagination.

I came up with the idea of a “Circe”, an enchantress who would transform her slaves into beasts with a tap of her luminescent cane.
It is night and the setting is a Mediterranean island.
To her feet one slave is half way to becoming a dog, worshipping and licking her long thigh-boots.
In a huge glass case, her “bull” slave – strong and well endowed – kneels obediently awaiting her needs. To the left the remnants of past slaves, hanging from branches or encased in glass jars.

Maybe one day she might release them, maybe not…Odysseus is far away.

Portrait of Mistress T

Mistress “T” is a great personal friend of Mistress Sidonia (who commissioned the portrait of Nina Birch) A while back she commissioned me to paint this portrait for Mistress T’s  40th birthday.

I wanted to make it an intimate portrait in a bedroom setting, as she has a particularly seductive expression. My initial idea was to have a gold/brown/red colour scheme but I changed it to blue/icy tones as I thought it important to emphasise her clear eyes. On the bed there are a few of her “tools of the trade”, suggesting something going on behind the curtains. On the tassel you can just see the initials of the “English Mansion”. Being Canadian, there is a subtle reference to the maple leaf on the drapery-and a “T” on the pillows of course.
(Will we ever know what the “T” stands for?)
www.mistresst.net

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