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“Lady Lilith”

Painter: Dante Gabriel Rossetti Style: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Aestheticism, Oil Year: 1866-73 Themes: Beauty, Youth, Mythology Notes: Lady Lilith is an oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti first painted in 1866–1868 using his mistress Fanny-Cornforth as the model, then altered in 1872–73 to show the face of Alexa Wilding. The subject is Lilith, who was, according to ancient Judaic myth, "the first wife of Adam" and is associated with the seduction of men and the murder of children. She is shown as a "powerful and evil temptress" and as "an iconic, Amazon-like female with long, flowing hair."

Rossetti overpainted Cornforth's face, perhaps at the suggestion of his client, shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland, who displayed the painting in his drawing room with five other Rossetti "stunners." After Leyland's death, the painting was purchased by Samuel Bancroft and Bancroft's estate donated it in 1935 to the Delaware Art Museum where it is now displayed.

The painting forms a pair with Sibylla Palmifera, painted 1866–1870, also with Wilding as the model.  Lady Lilithrepresents the body's beauty, according to Rossetti's sonnet inscribed on the frame.  Sibylla Palmifera represents the soul's beauty, according to the Rossetti sonnet on its frame.

A large 1867 replica of Lady Lilith, painted by Rossetti in watercolor, which shows the face of Cornforth, is now owned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has a verse from Goethe’s Faust as translated by Shelley on a label attached by Rossetti to its frame:

"Beware of her fair hair, for she excells All women in the magic of her locks, And when she twines them round a young man's neck she will not ever set him free again."

More: Lady Lilith

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“The Siren”

Painter: John William Waterhouse Style: Wood engraving and woodcut in black, brown, blue-grey, and grey, printed from four blocks, Surrealism Year: circa 1900 Themes: Mythology, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Notes: The Siren is a painting by John William Waterhouse. The painting depicts a siren sitting at the edge of a cliff, lyre in hand, staring down at a shipwrecked sailor floating in water, who in turn is staring up at her. The picture was painted in 1900 and is now part of a private collection. The estimated sales price for the painting in 2003 was one million pounds. It was last sold in 2018 by Seymour Stein for about five million USD. More: The Siren - Waterhouse

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“Rind”

Painter: M.C. Escher Style: Wood engraving and woodcut in black, brown, blue-grey, and grey, printed from four blocks, Surrealism Year: May 1955 Themes: Science Fiction, The Invisible Man Notes: Inspired by The Invisible Man, an 1897 science fiction novel by the British author H.G. Wells. In it, an invisible man can only be seen by means of the bandages that cover him. Escher changed the man into a woman. To find the right composition, Escher used his wife Jetta as a model. In 1954, he first made a preliminary study reaching a final result in two steps in May 1955.  First, he made a second study which he supplemented with a cloud cover for the final version. He described it like this:

‘Like the spiral-shaped peel of fruit and like a hollow fragmented sculpture, the image of a woman floats through space. The sense of depth is enhanced by a bank of clouds which diminishes towards the horizon.’*

More: Rind | Museum Escher in The Palace (escherinhetpaleis.nl) M.C. Escher – The Official Website (mcescher.com)

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“Maria Frederike Van Reede-athlone At Seven”

Painter: Jean-etienne Liotard Style: Pastel Year: 1755–1756 Themes: Youth, Childhood, Beauty Notes: Changing attitudes towards children and the emergence of a large middle class in eighteenth-century Europe increased the demand for portraits of children such as this one. Maria Frederike, the seven-year-old daughter of an aristocratic Dutch family, looks off to the side in a three-quarter view. Lost in thought, she is composed yet somewhat shy in comparison to her dog, who stares out with unabashed curiosity. With startling naturalism, Jean-Étienne Liotard captured her youth and beauty, setting off her eyebrows, lashes, and lustrous hair against her soft, fresh complexion. More: Portrait of Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone at Seven Years of Age (Getty Museum)

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“Seal” / "Sigillum"

Painter: Roberto Ferri Style: Contemporary, Baroque, Romantic, Surrealism Year: 2013 Themes: Mortality, Companionship, Love Notes: Roberto Ferri (b. 1978) is an Italian artist and painter from Taranto, Italy, who is deeply inspired by Baroque painters (Caravaggio in particular) and other old masters of Romanticism, the Academy, and Symbolism. More: Roberto Ferri - Artvee

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"Mother and Child"

Painter: Xi Pan Style: Contemporary, Oil on canvas Year: 2008 Themes: Motherhood, Maternity, Offspring More: Xi Pan – Artwork and Bio of the Chinese Painter – Artlex