undress me
with your words
and I'll write
your obituary
on my
heart
F. Cadogan Cowper's The Love Letter, hand-colourized by the artist, cut from the 1911 edition of Royal Academy Pictures and Sculpture.
The story
The picture is Frank Cadogan Cowper's The Love Letter: a young woman at a writing desk, quill in hand, looks out at the viewer, with an inkwell, an open book, a letter and a flower in front of her. It was shown at the Royal Academy's summer exhibition of 1911 and reproduced in black and white in that year's souvenir volume, Royal Academy Pictures and Sculpture. The page has been cut from that book and coloured by hand.
Cowper (1877–1958) was an English painter who kept working in the manner of the Pre-Raphaelites long after the movement was over, and has been called the last of them. He first exhibited at the Academy in 1899, became an Associate in 1907 and a full Academician in 1934.
From the artist
I am here imitating the meme style that arose out of digital online culture (social media). This ancient form of sexting, the love letter, meets the digital age.