16×20″ oil on panel.
Theodora the II (1442 – 1476)
After her husband was accidentally poisoned, she spent years traveling throughout the Middle East and Africa to meet witchdoctors and mystics, collecting their antidotes — paranoid of being poisoned as well. It is said the surge of leopard spots in aristocrat fashions had begun with her. She and four of her children later contracted malaria in eastern Africa – her oldest son the Marquess of Terra would be the only surviving family member.