The picture occupies a unique position in Grimshaw's oeuvre, being the only work he showed at the Grosvenor Gallery. It is also unusual in subject. Although he painted a number of pictures in the Alma-Tadema style, most are groups of classical figures in domestic settings. Single half-length figures are much rarer, as well as nearer to the 'aesthetic' ideal. The closest parallels are two pictures dated 1883 and with titles taken from Boccaccio - Fiammetta (sometimes erroneously called Fiamella), which was acquired by the Bradford City Art Gallery in 1978, repr. Atkinson Grimshaw, exh. Leeds, etc., 1979-80, cat. pl.31), and Lauretta, which was on the New York art market in 1982-3. It has been suggested that these titles were inspired by Franz von Suppé's operetta Boccaccio, staged at the Royal Comedy Theatre, London, in April 1882. The title A Vestal might have been adopted by many Victorian artists; in fact Grimshaw's picture fits neatly between Lord Leighton's Vestal (Leighton House), exhibited at the R.A. in 1883, and Burne-Jones's Flamma Vestalis (private collection), shown at the Grosvenor in 1886.

Walter Battle, a Leeds solicitor, Town Councillor, and later proprietor of the Leeds Times, was Grimshaw's most important patron, owning over eighty of his pictures at the time of the artist's death.

We are grateful to Alexander Robertson for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.