Although lesser known today, George Chapman appears to have been at the centre of London’s artistic society in the 1860s. His work shows a clear debt to the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti at this date, showing as it does a single, beautiful woman wearing an ornate dress, half-length and close to the picture plane. Rossetti’s studio at Cheyne Walk was a melting pot of ideas and a meeting place for aspiring, and more established, artists. Amongst the artists working there at this date were James Smetham and Frederick Sandys, to whose Medea of 1868 (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery), The Golden Witch is clearly indebted.

Another Chelsea resident who formed part of the Pre-Raphaelite circle in the 1860s was the American artist, James McNeill Whistler. Whistler clearly knew and admired Chapman’s work. Although his side of the correspondence isn’t recorded it is clear from the letter from the artist and critic George Augustus Sala to Whistler in May 1869 that Whistler had recommended The Golden Witch to Sala when it was displayed at the Dudley Gallery. Sala drew the comparison with Medea which was then on display at the Royal Academy: ‘Yes but Chapman's "Golden Witch" - an admirable picture - seems to me cribbed from Sandys' "Medea". Or they must have had the same model.’ (Letter from George Augustus Sala to James McNeill Whistler, May 1869, no. 11000 in The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855-1903, edited by Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp, On-line edition, University of Glasgow).