Summary
This is one of a series of pictures, commencing with Bocca Baciata (1859, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), that features voluptuous young women with long flaming tresses, absorbed in their own thoughts. An object of pure sensuality, Fazio's mistress is lost in reverie as she gazes at herself in the mirror and idly plaits her golden hair.
The subject is inspired by the poetry of Fazio degli Uberti (1326-1360), addressing his Lady, Agniola of Verona, which Rossetti had included in his Early Italian Poets in 1861. Fazio's description of his mistress's beauty (as translated by Rossetti) conforms extremely closely to Rossetti's image, for which he used his own mistress, Fanny Cornforth, as model:
I look at the amorous beautiful mouth,
The spacious forehead which her locks enclose,
The small white teeth, the straight and shapely nose,
And the clear brows of a sweet pencilling… (read more)
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