'Catching Dew Drops,' by Damon-A. H. Denys

'Catching Dew Drops,' by Damon-A. H. Denys. (I'll let you guess the date.) Here is focus. Here is concentration -- on a task deemed important, and evidently delightful.

The character is reportedly Iris, from 'The Tempest': "She is Juno’s messenger, and an Oceanid: the offspring of an unending stream of water that encircles the earth."

It is an intimate figure study of the model with a loose thematic basis as a portrayal of the character Iris from William Shakespeare’s play, "The Tempest". In Shakespeare’s play Iris is a faerie, so while Catching Dewdrops may seem like a simple portrait at first, it can actually be considered a faerie painting.

The literary reference to the painting in "The Tempest" is the following line: "With thy saffron wings upon my flowers, Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers." The "honey-drops" that are mentioned in this quote from "The Tempest" are interpreted in the painting to be dewdrops, thus the name of the painting. Iris is "catching dewdrops" so that she can sprinkle them about the flowers in her faerie-like way.