The Rebel Crew Draws Blasters Amid a Fiery Explosion — Print & Oil Painting

A group portrait in the old painted-cover manner: seven figures stacked into a tall frame, each turned to a different angle, all of them lit as though for a photograph rather than by anything in the scene.

The arrangement is a rough pyramid. Luke is at the apex, in pale robes with a green blade lit and angled back over his shoulder. Leia sits just below and to the right of him, both hands on a blaster and firing. Han holds the right edge in a long coat, his own weapon discharging at the frame line. Lando occupies the lower left in shirtsleeves and gloves, arm extended, muzzle flaring orange. Chewbacca fills the upper left mid-roar with his bowcaster across his chest, and the two droids close the bottom: C-3PO gold at the centre, R2-D2 white and blue at his feet.

Behind all of them a vast explosion boils up in ochre, tan and brown, painted soft and smooth so that it functions as a backdrop rather than as a threat, with a lavender sky showing at the top corners. Nobody in the picture is reacting to it.

The handling is airbrushed and warm throughout, with glazed skin, soft edges and gold and cream dominating, and every face is a clear likeness, which is the point of a sheet like this. It is a cast list, not a scene.

The green blade is the one dating detail: it belongs to the later Luke, after the first weapon was lost and he built his own. Part of our Star Wars collection, next to the ceremony at Yavin and the two of them aboard the Falcon.