The American, Doris Saatchi (née Lockhart), was Charles Saatchi’s first wife. This photograph was taken when the couple had attained almost legendary status as collectors of international contemporary art. The four-volume set of catalogues of their collection, ‘Art of Our Time’, was published in 1984 and showed that they had acquired many works now considered masterpieces. Mapplethorpe has captured her as a disembodied head looking directly into the camera with no hesitation. She has the gaze of someone who knows what she wants and knows how to appraise it.