Yennefer Vengerberg in a Raven-Feathered Gown — Print & Oil Painting

The only real colour admitted to this canvas sits along about eight inches of neckline. A band of feathers is laid across the top of the bodice, each one overlapping the next like a scale, and each one given a green and blue iridescence that shifts as it crosses the chest. Everything else, background included, is mixed from brown, olive and black.

Below the feathers the dress is built in layers the brush takes seriously: a laced panel closed with a small bow at the sternum, boned black satin over the ribs, a wide leather belt sitting low at the waist, and one long fitted sleeve on the right arm ending in a cuff at the wrist. The other shoulder is left bare.

The hands make it a portrait rather than a costume study. They are drawn up in front of the body, one closed loosely around the opposite forearm, held there with no tension in them at all. It is a private gesture, and it turns the whole figure inward.

The hair takes the light. It falls in a heavy wave across the right of the frame and lifts to warm honey wherever the source catches it, and that is the only warmth in the upper half of the picture; against it the face stays cool and evenly lit. At the throat sits a black velvet band with a small pale stone, the ornament the books never let her out of.

She looks straight out, mouth closed, chin barely lifted. From our The Witcher collection, where the portrait with a raven on her hand puts the same feathered bodice into far deeper shadow.