Francis Wollaston Moody (1824-1886) was employed at the South Kensington Museum, having joined the Department of Science and Art in 1863. He was one of Godfrey Sykes's assistants, helping to carry out the decoration of the Museum and heading a team of student workers until his resignation in 1882. Moody was also Instructor in Decorative Art at the National Art Training School at South Kensington. From 1880 to 1883 he was an occasional lecturer at the School.

This is a design for 'Art', one of the panels executed in painted mosaic on the Ceramic Staircase of the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) between around 1868 and 1871. This and the other mosaic panels on the staircase were prepared by students of the National Art Training School, under Moody's direction, and were manufactured by the 'Minton Campbell' process, by Minton, Hollins & Co. 'Art' is the first panel on the right-hand side of the first flight; the other panels on this flight represent literature and music.

The painting depicts a woman standing with bare feet in a landscape, holding a torch in her right hand and a paintbrush with a crayon sheath in her left. She is turned towards the spectator's left and is looking in that direction. She has a laurel wreath on her fair hair and she wears a long yellowish dress figured with a foliated ornament and a narrow red girdle. Over her left shoulder and below her waist hang folds of stone-coloured drapery. In the foreground left and right are plants with pink flowers, and there is a vista of bluish-grey hills in the background. The sky is a rich peacock blue at the top, becoming pale blue lower down.

In the mosaic the design was followed closely. There is a slight difference in the colouring of the hills, which are bluish-grey in the original design and much less blue in the mosaic panel.