Vlad the Impaler

Before Dracula, there was Vlad.

Vlad III was a fifteenth-century ruler of Wallachia whose name became attached to stories of brutality, resistance and, centuries later, the Dracula legend. The historical figure and the fictional vampire are not the same story — and that distinction is exactly what gives this version its character.

This portrait stays on the historical side of the line. Finished in an antique bronze/gold effect, it suits a collection built around medieval or Romanian history, while the separate Gothic Vlad takes the same name in a deliberately darker direction. Together they show how far one historical figure travelled in the imagination.