Exhibited: Tiffany's, New York, New York, 1968

Charles Rain was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1911. He was educated in Lincoln, Nebraska and spent two years studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. 1933 found Rain studying in Berlin. His time in Europe was interspersed with travel to Paris and Vienna. While in Europe Rain stopped working as an abstract artist and became a realist.

Back in the United States, Rain established his reputation as one of the Magic Realists. This movement originated in the 1940's and incorporated meticulous attention to detail and the traditions of European trompe l'oeil painting in portraiture, still life and landscape painting with the fantasy or "magic" of surrealism. Rain's work was included in the landmark Museum of Modern Art exhibition Realists and Magic Realists of 1943.

The diorama, Siena, is a 3 dimensional construction based on a stage set drawing by the 16th century Siennese artist Baldassare Peruzzi. This detailed shadowbox is one of five miniature stages Rains constructed in the 1960's. All five of these stages were featured in the display windows of Tiffany's in New York City in 1968.

Siena has a magical, ethereal quality to it. Rain achieves this with exquisite craftsmanship, clever perspective and the atmospheric blue light emanating from above which illuminates the city.