Lady Lilith. Lady Lilith is an oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti first painted in 1866-68 using his mistress Fanny Cornforth as the model, then altered in 1872-73 to show the face of Alexa Wilding.
The subject is Lilith, who was, according to ancient Judaic myth, the first wife of Adam and is associated with the seduction of men and the murder of children. She is shown as apowerful and evil temptress and as an iconic, Amazon-like female with long, flowing hair.
Rossetti overpainted Cornforth's face, perhaps at the suggestion of his client, shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland, who displayed the painting in his drawing room with five other Rossetti stunners. After Leyland's death, the painting was purchased by Samuel Bancroft and Bancroft's estate donated it in 1935 to the Delaware Art Museum where it is now displayed.
The painting forms a pair with Sibylla Palmifera, painted 1866-70, also with Wilding as the model. Lady Lilith represents the body's beauty, according to Rossetti's sonnet inscribed on the frame.
Sibylla Palmifera represents the soul's beauty, according to the Rossetti sonnet on its frame. A large 1867 replica of Lady Lilith, painted by Rossetti in watercolor, which shows the face of Cornforth, is now owned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has a verse from Goethe's Faust as translated by Shelley on a label attached by Rossetti to its frame: Beware of he
The subject is Lilith, who was, according to ancient Judaic myth, the first wife of Adam and is associated with the seduction of men and the murder of children. She is shown as apowerful and evil temptress and as an iconic, Amazon-like female with long, flowing hair.
Rossetti overpainted Cornforth's face, perhaps at the suggestion of his client, shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland, who displayed the painting in his drawing room with five other Rossetti stunners. After Leyland's death, the painting was purchased by Samuel Bancroft and Bancroft's estate donated it in 1935 to the Delaware Art Museum where it is now displayed.
The painting forms a pair with Sibylla Palmifera, painted 1866-70, also with Wilding as the model. Lady Lilith represents the body's beauty, according to Rossetti's sonnet inscribed on the frame.
Sibylla Palmifera represents the soul's beauty, according to the Rossetti sonnet on its frame. A large 1867 replica of Lady Lilith, painted by Rossetti in watercolor, which shows the face of Cornforth, is now owned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has a verse from Goethe's Faust as translated by Shelley on a label attached by Rossetti to its frame: Beware of he
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