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John William Waterhouse composed this In the Peristyle in 1874, early in his artistic career. The oil on canvas shows a young girl feeding pigeons on an outdoor balcony surrounded by ancient Greek architecture and lush vegetation. A ceramic vase with plants sits beside a black wooden chair detailed in gold, while birds gather on the light stone floor.
The model wears a white robe revealing one shoulder, with pink fabric wrapped around her waist. Her long blonde hair and downcast gaze as she scatters food create an intimate moment. Waterhouse was not yet fully embracing the Pre-Raphaelite movement at this point, working instead in an academic style influenced by Frederic Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
This painting came just a year before the Royal Academy accepted Waterhouse for their summer exhibition. It hangs at Touchstones Rochdale (Rochdale Arts & Heritage Service) in England. The classical setting and beautiful female subject would become hallmarks of Waterhouse's later, more famous mythological paintings.
Other masterpieces from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood movement

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1870
Tate Britain, London

John Everett Millais, 1850
Tate Britain, London
John Everett Millais, 1852
Tate Britain, London

Edward Burne-Jones, 1880
Tate Britain, London

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1874
Tate Britain, London

William Holman Hunt, 1854
Keble College Chapel, Oxford

John Everett Millais
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Oxford

John Everett Millais
Fitzwilliam Museum (University of Cambridge), Cambridge, Cambridge
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