Golden head by golden head, for "The Goblin Market"

Author Related author Christina Georgina Rossetti British

1861

Not on view

In August 1861, Rossetti proposed to the publisher Alexander Macmillan that he create"brotherly designs" to illustrate a volume of his sister Christina's poetry. This drawing is reproduced on the title page of "The Goblin Market and Other Poems." Finished by mid-December, the image was transfered to a wooden block by Rossetti, engraved by William J. Linton and printed and published in April 1862. As if in a fairy tale, we glimpse sisters sleeping in a curtained bed as goblins cavort in the background, the design echoing the related poem which treats temptation and addiction in a symbolic manner and evokes their strength through heightened, sensual verse. At an earlier moment in the story Lizzie manages to resist the goblins's offer of luscious fruit, but Laura succumbs. The young women here sleep peacefully, unaware of the addictive substance that will soon bring Laura close to death and force her sister to undertake an heroic confrontation with the goblins.

Artwork Details

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Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

References

Title: Golden head by golden head, for "The Goblin Market"
Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British, London 1828–1882 Birchington-on-Sea)
Author: Related author Christina Georgina Rossetti (British, London 1830–1894 London)
Date: 1861
Medium: Pen and black ink over graphite
Dimensions: Image: 2 3/4 × 3 7/16 in. (7 × 8.8 cm)
Sheet: 5 1/16 × 3 11/16 in. (12.9 × 9.4 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler, 2020
Object Number: 2021.16.11
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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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)
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