Dame Maria Paula Figueiroa Rego (26 January 1935 – 8 June 2022) was a Portuguese-British visual artist known particularly for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Rego's style evolved from abstract towards representational, and she favoured pastels over oils for much of her career. Her work often reflects feminism, coloured by folk-themes from her native Portugal.

In 1995, Rego used pastels to revise the story of Snow White in her drawing Swallows the Poisoned Apple. In her work, Snow White is pictured after she has eaten the poisoned apple and appears older and in some type of physical pain. She "lays clutching her skirts, as if trying to cling to life and her femininity which are slipping away".

This was done to show what a female goes through during the processes of life and ageing over the years, as well as showing the "physical and psychological violation" age plays in a female's life. At the time the artwork was made, Rego was about 60 years old and her age did play a significant part in this artwork.

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