In Coetzee's Pompeian Lady there are some aspects of typical Neo-classical paintings of women from the Mediterranean world. Coetzee was known for incorporating works by other artists into his own, such as those of the English painter John William Godward (1861-1922). From Godward's Pompeian Lady II (1891) he used the hairstyle and the doorway in the background, and Coetzee used the three-legged table from his At the Garden Shrine, Pompeii (1892).