The drawing was exhibited in 1907, the year of Fedden’s marriage. Swinburne’s poem is prefaced with “Hail, Empress Faustina, those about to die salute thee” – referring to the gladiators of the coliseum, who in the absence of a stoic emperor, were left to salute the lustful empress instead. Her power of life and death over these men, could also serve as a direct parallel for the intoxicating and terrifying nature of Romilly’s newfound love. Nevertheless, such reservations (if he did have them) were unfounded, with the marriage coming to an end only after husband and wife died, when their overnight train from Lisbon overturned in the Spanish town of Tolosa in March 1939.

Arthur Romilly Fedden was born in Bristol in 1875 to a rich family, the first in his area to own a car. He studied under Hubert von Herkomer at Bushey.  An article of 1893 compares his watercolours to those of Arthur Melville. James Watterston Herald’s paintings drew a similar comparison and it is interesting to note that both painters studied at Herkomer’s school around the same time.  Fedden later studied at the Académie Julian under Jean-Paul Laurens, the French academic painter portrayed by Rodin in 1881; it was possibly through him that Fedden's wife came to translate Paul Gsell's monograph on the great sculptor in 1912. 

In the years leading up to 1914, Fedden seems to have established a good reputation, exhibiting at the Modern Gallery in 1902, the Baillie Gallery in 1911 and at the Goupil Salon with James Pryde and William Nicholson in 1913. His foreign travels saw him show at the Venice Biennale in 1909, the Munich Secession and the Paris Salon.

Such momentum was disrupted with the outbreak of the First World War, where despite Fedden’s age he served as a captain in the small volunteer army of 1914. Whether he subscribed to then then common belief that it would “be over by Christmas” is unclear, but Fedden spent the next four years escaping the foul boredom of trench life to write a manual on fly-fishing. The book was published in 1919 and recalled his pre-war experiences of fishing the idyllic brooks and streams of Picardy with his friend Jean-Pierre.

A newspaper article of 1928 describes "a period of shattered health” after the War – to the extent, “that it was not until 1920 that there was any opportunity of seeing further work from his [Fedden’s] brush."

Fedden’s decline would suggest that in the competitive world of artistic reputation, war is one of the great impediments. For in the pursuit of posthumous recognition, an artist can afford to waste little time in developing their technique or profile. Life is short and though Fedden lost six of his best years, there were no doubt many other promising painters that lost a great deal more. Others lost key years in their development – or were so altered by their experiences as to have lost much of the optimism and vitality that drove them in their youth.  

“Mr Fedden keeps his hand in practice with studies of heads, and in the one entitled Faustine the drawing speaks of more than successful craftmanship. This form of pencil-work has always been the achievement of a school of artists who arose under Sir H. von Herkomer’s training at Bushey. Mr Fedden has practised drawing in the manner of this tradition as successfully as any of its exponents, using the pencil less as a fine point than with the breadth of handling which is characteristic of brush-work... There is often in an artist’s drawings the suggestion for his larger pictures and this gives them another interest; but it is Mr. Fedden’s habit to carry his sketches to a degree of finish which warrants us in regarding them as in themselves complete pictures.”

1907 Exhibition Frost & Reed, Bristol