A Vestal Virgin

British (English) School. Oil painting on panel, A Vestal Virgin, British (English) School, 18th century. An image of a young woman wearing a long white dress with a thin, white coat over and a chaplet of round white discs holding a long white veil onto her head. She stands, turned slightly towards a metal urn on a circular plinth to her left. She holds a small gold jug in her right hand from which she pours oil, or possibly water, into the urn which glows orange, releasing smoke, presumably incense, into the air. The woman holds the left side of her coat in her left hand. The event takes place in a shallow space against a dark background and the figure is probably located within a darkened interior. Roman vestal virgin tasks included the maintenance of the fire sacred to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth and home, collecting water from a sacred spring, preparation of food used in rituals and caring for sacred objects in the temple's sanctuary. Their sacred fire was treated, in Imperial times, as the emperor's household fire. A La Ronde, Devon (Accredited Museum)