My first Magazine Gossip: Scandals and Relationships of Authors | Page 25

Other models favoured by
Rossetti included his
sister, the poet Christina
Rossetti, who sat for his
earliest works, including
The Girlhood of Mary
Virgin (1848-49). He
painted Christina’s
brunette hair as auburn,
indicative of what would
become Rossetti’s
obsession with red hair –
leading him to meet and
fall in love with Lizzie.
Another of his most
constant models was the
beautiful Alexa Wilding,
who inspired some of his
most sexually provocative
paintings, including
Monna Vanna (1866),
Sancta Lilias (1874) and
Venus Verticordia (1864-
68) – notable for being
Rossetti’s only famous
painting to depict a naked
woman. Alexa, unlike the
majority of Rossetti’s
models, seemed to be
able to resist the artist’s
advances.
Perhaps the most faithful
of Rossetti’s models was
Fanny Cornforth, who
modeled for, amongst
others, Found (begun
1859; unfinished) and The
Blue Bower (1865). At the
end of Rossetti’s life, after
the suicide of Lizzie
Siddal and the end of his
affair with Jane Morris,
Fanny his lover-turned-
housekeeper took care of
the increasingly ill and
insane Rossetti. This
gentle, compassionate
side to Fanny’s
personality is perhaps
seen most clearly in her
expression in Bocca
Baciata (1859).
The Curious, Poetic Lives of the
Rosetti Siblings . Retrieved
fromhttps://litreactor.com/columns/t
he-curious-poetical-rossetti-siblings