The painting, in full Orientalist style, portrays a woman holding a stringed musical instrument, which rests on a surface that appears to be covered with the pelt of a wild animal, perhaps a large feline. The woman is dressed in a tunic that leaves one breast uncovered and leans her back against a wall decorated with hieroglyphs. Her typically Mediterranean beauty and sensuality contrast with her melancholic gaze directed toward the viewer’s right. Charles Knighton Warren was an English painter who lived in London and regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy during the third decade of the nineteenth century. Among his works, a portrait of a female musician preserved at the Sunderland Museum stands out, strongly recalling the style of the painting presented here.
