''Lady Godiva'' is an 1897 oil-on-canvas painting by English artist John Collier, who worked in the style of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The portrayal of

Lady Godiva Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. Today, she is mainly re ...

and her well-known but

apocrypha Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

l ride through

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

, England, is held in Coventry's Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. ''Lady Godiva'' was bequeathed by social reformer

Thomas Hancock Nunn Thomas Hancock Nunn (1859-1937) was an English social reformer. He was born on 14 March 1859 in London and admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge in 1880 with no scholarship. He received his B.A. in 1884 and his M.A. in 1904. He was also known as ...

. When he died in 1937, the painting was offered to the

Corporation of Hampstead Hampstead was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in London, England. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, governed by an administrative vestry. The parish was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board ...

. He specified in his will that should his bequest be refused by Hampstead, the painting was then to be offered to Coventry.Patrick W. Montague-Smith "Letters: Godiva's family tree", ''The Times'', 25 January 1983 The model in the painting is Mab (Mabel) Paul, an artist model and West End theatre actress who was also painted as herself by John Collier.

References

1898 paintings Horses in art Lady Godiva Paintings in the West Midlands Paintings by John Collier {{19C-painting-stub