Artwork Analysis: Lady Lilith

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Title: Lady Lilith

The painting “Lady Lilith” was painted by the English poet and painter Dante Gabriel
Rossetti from the Romanticism period within the years 1866 to 1868 using his mistress, Fanny
Cornforth, as his model and then was later altered within the years 1872 to 1873 to show the face
of Alexa Wilding. This painting is created with oil on canvas with a size of 96.5 cm x 85.1 cm,
commissioned by shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland. It’s currently located in the
Delaware Art Museum, where it had been donated in 1953 by Bancroft’s state. The painting –
accompanied with the sonnet “Lilith” (renamed to “Body’s Beauty”) that describes her as a witch
that seduces men only to strangle them with her golden hair as written by Rossetti – shows the
subject Lady Lilith who is contemplating her beauty in the mirror that she’s holding combing her
long, wavy, bright-colored hair

The type of subject the painting is representational as you can easily recognize the subject
as Lilith, the woman in the middle. She takes up most of the space in the painting and is the one
that stands out the most with the light colors used to paint her and her background painted mostly
with dark colors. The subject also represents a religious and mythological figure, Lilith, who,
according to Judaic myth, was Adam’s first wife and was known for being a seducer of men and
a murderer of children (Lesses, 2009), and can also be read in the sonnet Rossetti made alongside
the painting. The painting also seductively depicts Lilith with her clothes, which instead of
proper attires for women in that period that usually includes the Victorian corset, she’s wearing
her bedclothes that look as if they are about to be removed, showing her shoulders and breast
(Scerba, 1999a). The painting also includes many symbolisms, from her hair to her background
with the different flowers and the mirror.

Looking at the top right of the painting it looks as if there’s a window showing the
outside but seeing the candle’s reflection in it clarifies that it is a mirror. The reflection raises
more questions of whether she is outside as it shows a forest or inside as the background
suggests a bedroom (Moller, 2004). Lilith is also surrounded by flowers in the background, each
signifying something about Lilith: the white roses symbolizing sterile love, the poppy
symbolizing death, and the foxgloves symbolizing insincerity. It represents how Lilith is an
attractive woman that men desire yet also a deadly one as men become enchanted with her only
to be met by their death later. Her long golden hair that sits in our horizontal view also has its
metaphor, especially during the Victorian period, in which the more abundant the hair, the
stronger the sexual invitation that it displays as the luxuriance of hair signifies vigorous sexuality
(Scerba, 1999a). This same golden hair is also what she uses to strangle the men who are
enchanted by her as stated in the sonnet Rossetti wrote as can be read in the lines: “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 web she can weave, till heart and body and
life are in its hold.” and “They spell through him, and left his straight neck bent and round his
heart one strangling golden hair.” (McGann, 2008).

The artwork is also part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s movement, a group Rossetti
founded, in which they rebel against the Royal Academy of Arts’ insistence of artists learning by
imitating the paintings of Raphael, the popular genre of painting at that time. Their group also
focused on bringing naturalism and realistic detail back to painting with themes initially religious
and serious subjects exploring modern social problems like challenging gender norms just like
this painting. This artwork shows the femme fatale Lilith that changed the ideal feminine beauty
in Victorian times (Kelly, 2004). Lilith is now also considered as the feminist symbol for
autonomy, sexual choice, and control of one’s destiny that also changed her image from witch to
a powerful woman (Lesses, 2009).

The painting truly represents a woman who is content with her beauty and sexuality and
knows how to use it to her advantage that Rossetti attempts to show this power to the Victorian
women that they could possess over the male mind. Even though her appearance may suggest
sexual invitation, she does not encourage anyone to gaze at her, thus displaying her sexuality to
herself and not for a male viewer. Here, Rossetti means to and successfully presents the female at
her most beautiful and at the precise moment in which she is most conscious of this beauty as a
form of strength (May, 2004).
 References

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http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/dgr/paintings/moller4.html

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Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Lilith