John William Godward

Academic Art painter John William Godward (1861-1922) was one of the foremost painters of the "Marble School," depicting beautiful women in Classical dress against marble architectural settings. His paintings evoke ancient Rome and Greece with meticulous attention to historical detail. Women in flowing Greco-Roman gowns posed against Mediterranean backdrops, marble terraces, and tiger-skin rugs became his trademark subjects. Godward represented the end of a 500-year tradition of Classical subject painting in Western art.

Godward was a protege of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, following his mentor's technique and subject matter. His family disapproved of his art career, preferring he work in insurance. When he moved to Italy with a model in 1912, his family cut all contact and removed his image from family photographs. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1887 and gained membership in the Royal Society of British Artists in 1889. Godward's suicide note reportedly stated: "The world is not big enough for myself and a Picasso." His works hang at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, and in the collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber, who purchased Dolce far Niente for his collection.