Lot Essay
The image is reproduced in the catalogue of the Siddal exhibition held at Sheffield in 1991, but from one of the glass negatives of her work held by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (no. E1331 xxvii) rather than the drawing itself. It is one of the artist's most expressive inventions, possibly showing the influence of William Blake. Blake was a hero to her husband and mentor, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), and she must have been well aware of his work.