Dante Gabriel Rossetti's work represents a true pictorial hymn to his famous golden hair. Lady Lilith appears at auction for the first time after thirty years. The portrait was painted in 1860, Rossetti's most innovative period, when he created the Pre-Raphaelite cult of beauty, whose physical characteristics are embodied by Fanny Cornforth.
Two other portraits of Lady Lilith were made by Rossetti during the decade and are now in US museums. The rediscovered work will be auctioned at Sotheby's in London on July 13 with an estimate of £400.000-600.000.
Simon Toll, expert on Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian Art at Sotheby's, declares: “Rossetti's work is a great passion of mine and I have been lucky enough to present some important examples made by him at auction; works that have largely exceeded world records: for one of his watercolors, for a drawing and for an oil painting. Lady Lilith has always been one of my favorites, but I've never seen this painting live. It was a moment of genuine excitement when I first saw him, as he was unpacked from Japan, his home for the past 30 years. Not only is the painting in wonderful condition, but it is also in the original frame, with a handwritten poem by the artist on the board. Finding a painting of this caliber in such an excellent state of preservation is exceptionally rare".
Based on the evidence of Rossetti's paintings of Fanny alone, there can be no doubt about the nature of their relationship. The incarnation of the subject of Lilith in the guise of Fanny cannot be a mere coincidence: Fanny was very probably the first woman with whom Rossetti was and Lilith is the first woman, created from the same earth as Adam, before the creation of Eve. Thanks to her sensuality and her long golden hair, Fanny offered Rossetti an energetic antidote to the fragility of his future wife Lizzie Siddal. During the ten years with Lizzie, their relationship is thought to have never been consummated. After Lizzie's suicide in 1862, Fanny moved into Rossetti's studio to be his "housekeeper". In 1882, Rossetti wrote to Fanny begging her to come to her deathbed but her circle of friends cruelly chose not to deliver her will and Fanny was only informed of the artist after the funeral.
Rossetti began the first version of Lady Lilith (now in the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington), a large oil on canvas, in 1864 as the first commission for Frederick Richards Leyland, who was to become the artist's greatest patron. However, Leyland did not like the way Rossetti had painted Lilith's face and asked him to repaint her with a different model. Luckily Rossetti had made two watercolor replicas of Lady Lilith, both made in 1867.
One of these, made for the collector William Coltart, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, while the other, painted for Alexander Stevenson, is the version for sale. Fanny was saddened when she learned that her face had been erased from the 1872 version, to be replaced by the face of a professional model named Alexa Wilding, of a flaming beauty that kindled deep jealousy in her. Rossetti tried to keep the news hidden. Knowing that she would be "erased" by such behavior, she Fanny, she never posed for another Rossetti painting again, though she eventually forgave him for her levity.
