The Tambourine Girl

The Tambourine Girl is highly typical of the work of John William Godward, placing an elegant, pale model up against a backdrop of marble.

This artist was perhaps the best there has ever been in capturing marble surfaces, it is as if one can reach out and touch the smooth surfaces that he places behind this figure. He would ocassionally make use of wood too, such as with furniture, but marble was certainly his most used material. To achieve such a lifelike look would have taken considerable practice and also study.

Godward would also generally capture individual figures on their own rather than groups of figures, though these would appear sometimes too. He liked to create an atmosphere of internal reflection, where ladies would catch a moment alone to contemplate their lives in a relaxed environment. One can find similar in the work of the Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and John William Waterhouse, only within backgrounds that were more in keeping with Victorian Britain.