Balladine Cradling a Wounded Bird

Balladine Cradling a Wounded Bird, 2025. Charcoal, graphite, pastel, colored pencil, black chalk, black ink, and gouache on vellum, 9 x 12 in.

When I worked in the archives at Knoedler & Company, I would sometimes take my lunch breaks at the Frick Collection on the same block. Since I didn’t have much time to spend there, I had a route that would let me see five particular paintings. One of them was Ingres’s portrait of the Comtesse d’Haussonville.

I associate the Ingres portrait with my time at Knoedler, and the gallery’s downfall inspired the art counterfeiting plot of The Vaster Conspiracy, so I wanted to find a place to reference the Comtesse. Her distinctive face and blue dress just happened to fit the image I had of Balladine, so the humble housekeeper got a noble makeover, with each drawing of her referencing the Ingres painting in some way. Here, I used a cool Lamp Black pastel to contrast the warmer black tones of the bird and the rest of the drawing, suggesting a blue dress without using color,

Study of Balladine in Brown Ink

A brown pen and ink drawing with highlights in white gouache of a woman wearing large round glasses and with her hair in a plaited braid, giving a slight smile.

Study of Balladine in Brown Ink, 2025. Brown ink and gouache on vellum, 4 x 6 in.

This is the first work that I’ve made in color since August of 2023. According to Pantone, brown is a color, right?

Balladine changes her look from time to time: I wanted to see how she looked with her hair worn back rather than parted in the middle as usual.

Study of Balladine's Bird

A black and white pen and ink drawing of a small bird with runic text

Study of Balladine’s Bird, 2025. Ink and gouache on vellum, 4 x 6 in.

The character of Balladine has changed drastically since I started the first draft of The Vaster Conspiracy. Originally named Claudine, she started off life as a stock housekeeper character who did little more than answer the door at Cairngorn House. Since then, her role in the story has expanded, to say the least. Her latest character development involves a new hobby: seeking out wounded birds that flew into the Underground City’s ventilation and exhaust fans and nursing them back to health.

This sketch of one of Balladine’s birds was based on a painting by Bolognese Baroque painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi, an artist whose output varied wildly between sacred religious scenes and more informal genre paintings.