Painted in oil on canvas panel, Jay Johnstone’s portrait of Tyrion Lannister presents Casterly Rock’s youngest son as a figure from another century. Johnstone draws on the methods of medieval and Renaissance masters, letting warm, aged tones and soft shadow settle around the face so the work carries the quiet weight of a long-forgotten court portrait. Tyrion appears not as a jester but as a thinker: watchful, wry and wounded. His gaze holds the sharp intelligence and weary humour that define him. It is a study of a man underestimated by all around him, rendered with dignity, depth and real humanity.

At a young age, Tyrion married  Tysha, a commoner, but eventually Jaime told him the girl was a  whore he had paid to take Tyrion’s virginity. The rose in Tywins hand a remenberance of his love – he points to the Lannister lion and the gold paid for his verginity. To his left the naked silhouette of a prostitute, to his right the burning ships from his defence of Casterly Rock.