Thisbe

This work is Edwin Long's reduced replica of his Babylonian Thisbe which was painted in the same year. He would later paint a second version of this subject in 1884.
When describing the larger earlier work, Mark Bills observes 'Long's first painting of Thisbe uses his knowledge of ancient Babylon to depict her seated on a wall of Babylonian wall painting. Thisbe is depicted full-length dressed in robes and an amulet, leaning to hear the whispers of Pyramus through the chink in the wall.' Long took his subject from Ensden's translation of Ovid quoted in the Christie's sale catalogue that accompanied the work in 1908
In Babylon where first her queen, for state,
Rais'd walls of brick magnificently great.
Liv'd Pyramus and Thisbe.
A closer Neighbourhood was never known,
Tho' two the houses, yet the roof was one.
When the division wall was built,
A chink was left, the cement unobserv'd to shrink;
So slight the cranny that it still had been
For centuries unclosed, became unseen.
But oh, what thing so small, so secret lies,
Which 'scapes, if formed for love, a lover's eye.
(M. Bills, Edwin Longsden Long RA, London, 1998, p. 108).