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拍品专文
This fascinating version of Rossetti’s major oil painting Lady Lilith (fig. 1, Delaware Art Museum) is a perfect demonstration of his unusual and somewhat complicated studio practice.
Rossetti was gripped by the subject of Lilith, who, in Talmudic legend, was the wife of Adam before Eve. The story is alluded to in Goethe's Faust, one of his earliest and most formative sources of literary inspiration, and he treated it in the painting (dated 1864-8), and in two poems first published in his Poems of 1870, 'Eden Bower' and the following sonnet:
Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve)
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent,
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.
The sonnet was later incorporated into Rossetti's House of Life sequence and re-titled 'Body's Beauty'. As this implies, Lilith is associated with the world and the flesh; indeed, according to Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book certainly known to Rossetti, 'Adam of her...begat nothing but diuils [devils]'. She is a prime example of the femme fatale who exercised such a profound influence on the Pre-Raphaelite, and ultimately on the international Symbolist, imagination.
Rossetti used his mistress and housekeeper, Fanny Cornforth, as the model for the work, depicting her gazing into a mirror, captivated by her own flowing hair, in front of a backdrop of roses. It was begun in 1864, and took four years to complete before being sold to Frederick Leyland, a Liverpool shipowner and one of Rossetti’s most important patrons, for his famous ‘aesthetic’ interior at 23 Queen’s Gate, Kensington. However, in 1872, at Leyland’s request, the painting was returned to Rossetti and Cornforth’s face replaced with that of Alexa Wilding. In the process much of the intimacy and chemistry of the painting was lost, and the sitter acquires something of a detached, lifeless quality.
The present drawing clearly dates from the initial form of the painting – the sitter’s features are certainly those of Fanny Cornforth, and there is an evident intimacy lacking from the Delaware picture. There are differences in the background, and the drapery covering the chair which suggest that it was made before the painting was finished in 1868. A watercolour version now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (fig. 2) was dated to 1867 by Charles Fairfax Murray, who also attributed it in part to Henry Treffry Dunn. It seems highly likely that the present drawing shares that date and attribution.
Dunn, born in Truro and first trained as a bank clerk, became Rossetti’s studio assistant in 1867, remaining largely in the role until Rossetti’s death. His importance to the artist cannot be over-emphasised: Rossetti described him as ‘the best of fellows and my guardian angel'. Dunn wrote an account of Rossetti and his circle, published posthumously in 1904, which provided an invaluable insight into the workings and lives of the Pre-Raphaelites. He is known to have made versions, often in coloured chalk, of many of Rossetti’s most famous works, and indeed to have worked on versions later finished by the master. Notably, a version of Proserpine, sold in these Rooms, 16 December 2015, lot 104 (fig. 3), was accompanied by a letter from Dunn which stated that it was made by Dunn for Rossetti 'during his last illness/ and would have been touched/ upon by him had he lived. After his death it came into my/ hands & I then finished it/ up to its present state that/ it now possesses’, demonstrating the collaborative nature of their working practice, in which Dunn both produced copies and prepared preliminary works for completion by Rossetti. The exact purpose of the present drawing is unclear, as is its early provenance, but it is likely to share something of Proserpine’s history – a version of a composition admired by another patron.
Rossetti was gripped by the subject of Lilith, who, in Talmudic legend, was the wife of Adam before Eve. The story is alluded to in Goethe's Faust, one of his earliest and most formative sources of literary inspiration, and he treated it in the painting (dated 1864-8), and in two poems first published in his Poems of 1870, 'Eden Bower' and the following sonnet:
Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve)
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent,
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.
The sonnet was later incorporated into Rossetti's House of Life sequence and re-titled 'Body's Beauty'. As this implies, Lilith is associated with the world and the flesh; indeed, according to Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book certainly known to Rossetti, 'Adam of her...begat nothing but diuils [devils]'. She is a prime example of the femme fatale who exercised such a profound influence on the Pre-Raphaelite, and ultimately on the international Symbolist, imagination.
Rossetti used his mistress and housekeeper, Fanny Cornforth, as the model for the work, depicting her gazing into a mirror, captivated by her own flowing hair, in front of a backdrop of roses. It was begun in 1864, and took four years to complete before being sold to Frederick Leyland, a Liverpool shipowner and one of Rossetti’s most important patrons, for his famous ‘aesthetic’ interior at 23 Queen’s Gate, Kensington. However, in 1872, at Leyland’s request, the painting was returned to Rossetti and Cornforth’s face replaced with that of Alexa Wilding. In the process much of the intimacy and chemistry of the painting was lost, and the sitter acquires something of a detached, lifeless quality.
The present drawing clearly dates from the initial form of the painting – the sitter’s features are certainly those of Fanny Cornforth, and there is an evident intimacy lacking from the Delaware picture. There are differences in the background, and the drapery covering the chair which suggest that it was made before the painting was finished in 1868. A watercolour version now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (fig. 2) was dated to 1867 by Charles Fairfax Murray, who also attributed it in part to Henry Treffry Dunn. It seems highly likely that the present drawing shares that date and attribution.
Dunn, born in Truro and first trained as a bank clerk, became Rossetti’s studio assistant in 1867, remaining largely in the role until Rossetti’s death. His importance to the artist cannot be over-emphasised: Rossetti described him as ‘the best of fellows and my guardian angel'. Dunn wrote an account of Rossetti and his circle, published posthumously in 1904, which provided an invaluable insight into the workings and lives of the Pre-Raphaelites. He is known to have made versions, often in coloured chalk, of many of Rossetti’s most famous works, and indeed to have worked on versions later finished by the master. Notably, a version of Proserpine, sold in these Rooms, 16 December 2015, lot 104 (fig. 3), was accompanied by a letter from Dunn which stated that it was made by Dunn for Rossetti 'during his last illness/ and would have been touched/ upon by him had he lived. After his death it came into my/ hands & I then finished it/ up to its present state that/ it now possesses’, demonstrating the collaborative nature of their working practice, in which Dunn both produced copies and prepared preliminary works for completion by Rossetti. The exact purpose of the present drawing is unclear, as is its early provenance, but it is likely to share something of Proserpine’s history – a version of a composition admired by another patron.