Daenerys Targaryen Reclining by Candlelight — Print & Oil Painting

Nothing in this image was made with a brush. Skin, silk and metal are resolved to a level of detail no painting in this collection attempts, the focus drops off behind the shoulder exactly the way a lens drops it, and the light has the evenness of a real room with real windows in it. The piece sits among its neighbours the way a photograph sits in a folder of drawings.

Three candles do the work. They stand in a wrought black candelabra on a side table at the right, each flame small, upright and untroubled, and their warmth is the only warm colour anywhere: it grazes the wall behind, catches the metal of the stand, and dies well before it reaches the figure. Two lit apertures further back repeat the same amber at a lower key.

She is settled sideways into a chair with one arm resting along the front of her, the head tipped slightly and the eyes level with the viewer. The dress is a pale ice blue with a short cape over one shoulder, and at the neckline sits the piece that carries the whole identification: a dark wrought clasp of two twisted dragons, the only ornament she wears.

Everything about the composition is domestic. No fire, no crowd, no animal, no throne, just a young woman in a chair in a room with the candles lit, which is a rarer subject for this character than any of the spectacle. In our Game of Thrones collection, and the golden profile portrait keeps the same quiet and paints it instead.