Professor Severus Snape in Black Robes — Print & Oil Painting

The row of buttons is the only straight line anywhere in the picture. It runs from the collar to below the knee, a double column of small dark discs down a black frock coat, and everything else has been kept soft: the smoke behind, the sagging folds of the outer robe, a grey light with no source you could point to.

The figure stands square to us and entirely still. The arms hang at the sides, the great sleeves of the cloak spread from the shoulders like something folded rather than worn, and the right hand is closed around a thin wand angled down at the floor. A white cuff shows at that wrist, the single bright note below the face.

The head is small within the frame and has been kept that way on purpose. Black hair in heavy hanks to the jaw, deep lines beside the nose, the mouth set, the eyes level with ours and thoroughly unimpressed. There is no drama in the expression at all, which is what makes the portrait work.

The palette runs from ash to near black over a faint brown ground, and the background is fog worked in dry vertical strokes that thin out towards the edges. It is built to be hung and read slowly rather than to catch anyone from a distance. From our Harry Potter collection, and the restrained answer to the graphic study in gold and red. The night this man's story ends is painted in the burning courtyard.