Masterful Stealth and Power — Print & Oil Painting

Corvo is caught in the half-second before the drop. He crouches on a ledge above Dunwall, weight forward on the balls of his feet, one arm folded across his knee and the other thrown open — and in that open palm sits a single point of fire, the only warm thing in the picture. Everything else has been drained: the coat is charcoal, the mask is dull pewter, the city behind him is a wash of grey vapour with the suggestion of chimneys somewhere in it.

What makes the composition work is the rats. They come up from the bottom edge in a low tide of grey fur, and the artist has given each one a pair of embers for eyes, so the lower third of the canvas glitters with tiny orange points that echo the flame in Corvo's hand. The plague is not illustrated here; it is simply present, crawling up towards the man who is supposed to end it.

The mask is the piece's anchor. Rendered in flat, riveted plates with those two mismatched brass lenses, it refuses to be a face — which is exactly the point of Corvo in this chapter of the story, a man reduced to an instrument. The hood swallows the top of the skull and leaves only that grin of a jawline catching the light.

It belongs to our Dishonored collection, which also holds The Branded Assassin, a rain-soaked profile of the same figure, and Mysterious Duality, where the mask is set against Emily's face.