Empress Lü is a large-format portrait in profile, acrylic on dibond (an aluminium composite panel), 108 x 108 cm including frame. The subject is Lü Zhi, the first woman to rule a unified China, who governed the Han dynasty in all but name for fifteen years following the death of her husband in 195 BC. Muse paints her against a background broken into hard blocks of grey, teal, red and ochre that press against each other with no transitions, a world in fragments held together by the figure at its centre. The face is pale and precisely handled, a red earring with long tassels hanging below the jaw and gold ornaments massed in the hair above.

Where Muse's portrait of Empress Cixi holds its composure entirely, this painting loosens. Drips of paint are left to run at the neck. The marks in the hair are wider, faster, less resolved. The background does not cohere. It is a portrait of power in turbulent circumstances rather than power in its settled state, and the paint itself carries that quality, controlled at the face, released everywhere else.

This work has been sold. To enquire about similar available works by Zara Muse, contact Eclectic Gallery, Fitzrovia, London.