Variously described by his students as resembling a ‘medieval necromancer’ or a ‘creeping Jesus’, Thomas Heatherley ran Heatherley’s School of Fine Art, the first art school to admit women on...
Variously described by his students as resembling a ‘medieval necromancer’ or a ‘creeping Jesus’, Thomas Heatherley ran Heatherley’s School of Fine Art, the first art school to admit women on equal terms with men. This jewel-like fairy painting was created circa1860 in Heatherley’s highly distinctive manner that drew inspiration from Bosch and Brueghel, as well as from Ingres’ odalisques. Each fairy is a ‘type’ of female beauty, from dark to fair complexion.