An intimate, close-cropped painting rendered almost entirely in warm reds and browns: a red-haired woman leans in to kiss an armored, helmeted figure, her hand cupping his cheek, ornate tribal patterning visible on the wall behind them. Unlike most of the gallery's battle and monster imagery, this piece is quiet and tender, no violence, no monsters, just a single close moment between two figures rendered with the same painterly weight Bisley usually reserved for combat. The armored figure's helmet, ornately patterned metal with an inlaid design, suggests a warrior or king rather than a common soldier, and the title's suggestion that this is a king being kissed fits a recurring theme across Bisley's Sláine-adjacent gallery work, tribal kingship, warrior culture, and the mythic weight given to a leader's private moments as much as his public battles. It's a useful reminder that Bisley's range extended well past monsters and mayhem; a scene this quiet and romantic, rendered with real tenderness in the woman's expression and the gentleness of her hand against his face, required a completely different register from the chaos found elsewhere in this collection, and Bisley handles the shift confidently. The warm, almost candlelit color palette does a lot of work here too, wrapping the whole scene in an intimate glow rather than the harsher, high-contrast lighting used for most of the battle pieces nearby, proof that the same artist known for chainsaw fights and demon hordes could just as easily turn his hand to something closer to classical romantic painting when the subject called for it.
Redheaded female kisses the King
