It was a bright day in early summer when the Duchess first called. Despite the warm weather she wore a grand hooded mantle of pale green silk, trimmed with foxfur, and a matching muff of gargantuan proportions. As she wafted around his studio in a haze of powder and perfume, he felt compromised and somewhat intimidated by her presence. Although he had always made a point of dressing as smartly as his purse would allow, he now felt keenly the substandard cut of his blue velvet coat and the shabbiness of his thin linen shirt. She was a tall woman, several years his senior, broad in the shoulder and bust, and although he was probably at least three inches taller than she, her towering mass of frizzed hair brought them to an equal height. Thankfully her natural charm cut through the trappings of her fashionability, and they quickly struck up an easy rapport. She seemed to show a genuine interest in his work, admiring particularly his copies after the Flemish masters and gazing with wide green eyes at his sketches of the classical nudes he had encountered on his Grande Tour. She probed him intimately about his influences and aspirations and he found himself answering with unexpected candidness. Seeming satisfied with what she heard and saw, she declared her desire to have a full-length from his easel and before the end of her visit a date for the first sitting had been arranged.

Only after the sound of her chaise had faded from the cobbled streets outside did he realise the magnitude of what lay before him. The Duchess, more so perhaps than any celebrated beauty in London, had been the star in a series of portraits that included some of the greatest works by the most distinguished painters of the day. He may have been considered something of a prodigy in the provinces, but since moving to the capital the bulk of his commissioned work had been of stodgy middle-aged gentleman -lawyers, politicians and businessmen-and their more respectable than remarkable wives and children. Aware that a portraitist was judged first and foremost on the strength of his female full-length, he had cultivated acquaintance with a number of actresses who would pose for him and allow him to develop his skills, but never before had he had a sitter of the Duchess’ caliber.

Perhaps it was his awareness of these things which overshadowed their first sitting so terribly. To this she wore a stiff robe of topaz-coloured satin over a gown of lavender lace. She adorned her hair and neck with brilliants as befitted her status, and on her wrist she wore a pearl bracelet set with a miniature of her husband, the Duke. Although the overall effect was one of impressive grandeur, he sensed she was in a state of agitation as she stood before his easel. Her heavy finery was clearly too stifling in the close atmosphere of the studio and as he began to sketch he noticed her pulling irritably from time to time at the black velvet ribbon around her throat.

After two hours had passed, in which he had completed a number of preliminary sketches and marked out the beginning of the composition onto the canvas, she came to inspect his progress; Her pouted lips and furrowed brow communicated all that he needed to know. He felt a wave of disappointment come over him as he feared he was about to lose the commission, and after a few moments of agonizing silence his hopelessness impelled him to make a bold suggestion. “Perhaps... if you wish to continue the appointments... your grace might return in that striking ensemble you wore at our first meeting...?” She looked at him quizzically and so he continued, “I fear there is something about your current choice of costume that puts your ladyship out of countenance... And, besides,” he added, in a final bout of recklessness, “it does not flatter your colouring”. Although the Duchess was used to being directed by the more renowned of her portraitists, she would not have expected it of one so young and un-established. Yet there was something compelling in the young man’s trespass that made her cock her head to one side and reply in gentle mockery, “So it would seem, therefore, that it is merely this oppressive attire that comes between my beauty and your budding genius.” And as she said this she tugged at the neckline of her bodice causing the blood to fire up into his cheeks.

To his immense relief the Duchess sent word within a few days that she would return for a further sitting. On the morning in question, he found himself adjusting his cravat and brushing down his dress coat with meticulous attention, examining the arrangement of his soft chestnut curls with a new-found scrutiny. Upon her arrival, he saw that she had indeed worn the original cloak and muff, which -he now appreciated- accentuated the colour of her eyes and the peachiness of her skin. Emboldened by this compliance on her part, he suggested that they proceed with her seated rather than standing, and gestured towards a velvet couch in the corner of the studio. She arranged herself elegantly, crossing her legs and resting her chin on an arm which she propped coquettishly on the arm of the couch. He considered the composition for a few moments and then, realizing that he could not communicate his desire in words, cautiously stepped forward to rearrange her garments. He did not remove the cloak but drew it apart at the front and gathered the excess to one side, where it splayed over the seat and spilled onto the floor.

He realised at this point that he had not noticed before what she had been wearing under the cloak, despite having asked her to repeat the outfit. It was a gown of white muslin, so fine as to be almost transparent, tied at the waist with a blue satin band. As if reading his thoughts she said to him, “You must appreciate now the necessity for furs, even in summertime, for in a dress this insubstantial I would be sure to catch a chill.” He laughed, incredulous at the whimsy of fashionable ladies. Nevertheless, it was an infinitely pleasing contrast with what she had worn at the previous sitting, and as he knelt before her he found his gaze lingering on the way the material fell across the curves of her lap and following the smooth line of the dress up to the silky expanse of her beaming décolletage. Her playfully accusing gaze disrupted his reverie and he hastily returned to his easel.

He sensed that there was no need for preliminary sketching this time, and picking up his brush and palette immediately marked out the bold contours of her thighs, hips and breasts before tracing more delicately the lines of her throat and jaw. When he came to painting her hands he worked with exquisitely delicate strokes, recreating with no conscious use of flattery the way the tapered fingers curled gently around the fur lining of her cloak. Yet whilst he reveled in the process of tracing out every fold of fabric and every curve of her figure with elongated, sinuous strokes, he was never quite satisfied with what he saw when he stood back to take in the composition as a whole. Her face on the canvas seemed to him not so much a mirror of the animated beauty of her expression as the copy of a doll in the Duchess’ image, her complexion cold, her eyes dull. Determined but strangely unable to capture the attraction of what he saw before him he dragged the number of sittings on to three, four and eventually five, by which time he sensed that she was beginning to grow impatient.

After the first hour of the fifth sitting had passed, she asked him to excuse her for a moment so that she might take a turn in his garden to stretch her weary limbs. Whilst she was gone he drew up a stool in front of the easel and sat with chin in hand, troubled by his inability to bring the work to life. As he had not heard her re-enter, he was startled when he felt the soft touch of hair against his cheek, accompanied by the smell of powder and rose oil as she leaned over his shoulder to inspect the work. “It is a good likeness”, she spoke softly and close enough so that he felt her warm breath on his ear, “but I lack vitality, a certain vibrancy, a particular...quality” She trailed off, and he turned his head to find their faces almost touching. Her eyes held his for a moment, poised in some silent consideration, before she brought her finger to his jaw line and trailed it over his chin to his lower lip, now hanging open. She bent forward and enclosed the lip delicately within her own. Hesitatingly, his heartbeat suddenly wild within him, he responded, testing the fullness of her mouth against his own, feeling out the frontier between the velvety dry skin and the moisture within. Unconsciously he moved the tips of his fingers to her waist and up the front of her bodice until they rested at the pinnacle of her bosom, at which point he saw, to his horror, that he had left a streak of red paint down the front of her immaculate muslin. She, however, merely laughed quietly and without saying anything further took him by the hand and led him back to the couch, still clutching his loaded brush.

As she reclined beneath him, he allowed all considerations of propriety to be cast aside and cleared away the blousy folds of muslin around her neckline and drew her breasts up from her bodicewith his paint covered hands. He sucked eagerly at her nipples as he gathered the weightless excess of her skirts and petticoats up over her stockinged thighs. By now her pristine dress and ivory flesh were covered in the greasy paint. Heedless, she hurriedly unwound his cravat and discarded it to the floor, before pulling his shirt over his head. Then with fast, determined hands she moved to the gold buttons on his buff breechesand unleashed him. He slipped within her, noting the contrast between the thick greasy paint in his hands and the silky slickness of her interior. Her muscles tightened around him and she clasped her legs about his waist so that she might respond to his thrusts with violent heaves of her own. Her breaths evolved into ragged moans and he let out long, anguished sighs as they melted into one another. She felt the silk lining of her cloak beneath her naked loins and clutched at the fur trim as her passion washed over her; He buried his face deep within the marble cleft of her cleavage and stabbed the brush, still in his right hand, deep into the velvet cushion of the couch as his final thrust bore through him. They lay quivering in an oily, slippery state of sublime satisfaction, the mess of muslin, fur and satin around them all streaked with bright vermillion.

Presently he arose and returned to his easel, as she restored herself to her previous arrangement. “Pray, sir,” she said “be swift or I shall be late for my next appointment.” Somewhat disorientated, he brought his brush to the canvas with obedient gusto. Now applying paint with vigorous bravura strokes, he found his mind making bold new decisions about colour and tone. He mixed a rose-tinted peach for her cheeks, and rather than daubing it on with the unfeeling approach of a doll-manufacturer, such as the fashion of the times dictated, he blended it into a complexion that was warm, luminous and faintly glistening still. With daring use of chiaroscuro he plunged the right hand of the painting into darkness and set off her exquisite profile towards the late-afternoon sun which filtered through the windows of his studio. Underneath her layers of drapery, which he painted with a luxuriousness previously unknown to him, he brazenly defined those rounded thighs which clasped his memory with as much force as they had recently employed around his waist. And throughout the whole he wove strands of that ubiquitous vermilion that had coloured their encounter, with the effortless confidence of a true master.

***

It was the first day of the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition and Somerset House was heaving with visitors. A curious array of artists and connoisseurs, and persons of all social standing from princes and politicians to pastry chefs, interspersed with a generous number of children and small dogs, jostled and gossiped and gawked at the equally cluttered gallery walls. From amongst the heroes and heroines of history, tragedy and contemporary commerce, one particularly striking picture emerged, unique in its colouring and daring in its composition. “My word!” the president was overheard to remark “such ravishing vitality rendered at the brush of one so inexperienced is truly remarkable”. The artist stood in a pool of contentment, soaking up the lavish praise that poured forth from the adoring crowd and smiling quietly to himself. The catalogue listed it simply as ‘No. 18. A Lady of Quality’, and whilst none could be in doubt as to the identity of the lady herself, only he could appreciate the particular nature of that quality.