«Donna Darvol»

Donna Darvol, original painting

In 1281 Florence passed its first law to rein in luxury, and for the next two centuries the city kept writing more of them, mostly about what women wore. The rules reached down to how many rings a woman could have on each hand. Women, of course, kept finding ways around them.

That is the starting point of this money wall art painting. The limits are gone now, and wealth gets shown off on a phone screen.

A veiled young woman looks out of a Renaissance-style portrait, dark hair under a yellow band, a round earring. Her veil is covered in an interlocking double-letter monogram pattern in grey and green. Her mouth has slipped sideways onto a separate strip, and a patterned bar sits where it should be. Her neck is filled with dollar, euro and crypto symbols, with silver chains lying over them. In her hand is a phone, and she wears coloured stones on her fingers.

Above her, grey clouds hold sketched rings and earrings: a pink emerald-cut stone, yellow diamonds, a blue sapphire, a green heart-shaped stone. They read like thoughts she cannot say aloud. Small pixel blocks drift around the frame, and the paint is built up in thick yellow ridges against a turquoise ground.

The veil, the headband and the heavy sleeves remind me of Raphael's La Velata, painted around 1516 and now in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the same city that wrote those laws. I like that the circle closes there.

This original pop art painting is 120 x 90 cm, on canvas, made in 2022. It is contemporary pop art, and money wall art that works as art for office walls as well as in a private home.

Most of my original paintings are already in private collections, but I paint originals to order in any size. To ask about this one, message me on Instagram or by email. A hand-finished lithograph of it also exists, and you can order that the same way.