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Lady Lilith

1867
Not on view
Fascinated by women’s physical allure, Rossetti here imagines a legendary femme fatale as a self-absorbed nineteenth-century beauty who combs her hair and seductively exposes her shoulders. Nearby flowers symbolize different kinds of love. In Jewish literature, the enchantress Lilith is described as Adam’s first wife, and her character is underscored by lines from Goethe’s Faust attached by Rossetti to the original frame, “Beware . . . for she excels all women in the magic of her locks, and when she twines them round a young man’s neck, she will not ever set him free again.” The artist’s mistress, Fanny Cornforth, is the sitter in this watercolor, which Rossetti and his assistant Dunn based on an oil of 1866 (Delaware Art Museum).

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Lady Lilith
  • Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British, London 1828–1882 Birchington-on-Sea)
  • Artist: Henry Treffry Dunn (British, Truro 1838–1899 London)
  • Date: 1867
  • Medium: Watercolor and gouache (bodycolor)
  • Dimensions: 20 3/16 X 17 5/16 in. (51.3 x 44 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1908
  • Object Number: 08.162.1
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

More Artwork
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St. Cecily / Cecilia (related to illustration for The Palace of Art in Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903), Dante Gabriel Rossetti British, Photogravure
St. Cecily / Cecilia (related to illustration for The Palace of Art in Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
New Amsterdam Book Company
1903
St. Cecily / Cecilia (Illustration for The Palace of Art in Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903), Dante Gabriel Rossetti British, Wood engraving
St. Cecily / Cecilia (Illustration for The Palace of Art in Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dalziel Brothers
1857–1903
Mythic Uther's Deeply Wounded Son (King Arthur and the Weeping Queens) (Illustration for "The Palace of Art" in Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903), Dante Gabriel Rossetti British, Photogravure
Mythic Uther's Deeply Wounded Son (King Arthur and the Weeping Queens) (Illustration for "The Palace of Art" in Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
New Amsterdam Book Company
1903
Mariana in the South (related to illustration for "The Palace of Art," Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903), Dante Gabriel Rossetti British, Photogravure
Mariana in the South (related to illustration for "The Palace of Art," Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
New Amsterdam Book Company
1903
Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903), Dante Gabriel Rossetti British, Wood engraving
Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
William James Linton
1857–1903

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