Philippa Eilhart Casts a Spell by Sunlit Windows — Print & Oil Painting

Two tall arched windows with leaded panes, and a small diamond-shaped one set high in the timber frame above them: the whole picture is lit by what comes through those three openings, and the artist has thought carefully about what that light does after it arrives.

It lands on white bed linen and pale plaster and bounces, so there is no true black anywhere in the room. Shadows under the bed and along the beams stay warm brown, dust hangs visible in the beams, and the right-hand side of the canvas dissolves into a golden haze where a hanging curtain catches the sun full on.

She sits on the edge of the bed with one leg crossed over the other, turned toward the viewer, two long dark braids falling over her shoulders and a small gold ornament pinned in her hair. Her left hand is raised with the fingers spread and one faint spark at the tips. That is the entire spell: this painting is considerably more interested in the afternoon than in the magic.

The costume is worth an inventory. A rust-red bodice laced low at the front, a teal wrapped skirt, a wide belt carrying a red cabochon at the waist and a round pierced disc like a small pentacle at the hip, gold cord edging the seams. A white feathered mass lies on the bed behind her, a jug and a table stand beyond, and a rail with a hooked curtain closes the top right.

She is one of the very few mages on the Continent able to change shape, and the form she takes is a large grey owl, which makes the feathers lying on that bed worth a second look. It hangs in our The Witcher collection, alongside the same sorceress at her alchemy bench under green lightning.