''Bocca Baciata'' (1859) is a painting by

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

which represents a turning point in his career. It was the first of his pictures of single female figures, and established the style that was later to become a signature of his work. The model was Fanny Cornforth, the principal inspiration for Rossetti's sensuous figures. The title, meaning "mouth that has been kissed", refers to the sexual experience of the subject and is taken from the Italian proverb written on the back of the painting:

''Bocca baciata non perde ventura, anzi rinnova come fa la luna.''
‘The mouth that has been kissed does not lose its good fortune:
rather, it renews itself just as the moon does.’

Rossetti, an accomplished translator of early Italian literature, probably knew the proverb from

Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was some ...

’s ''

Decameron ''The Decameron'' (; it, label=Italian, Decameron or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old it, Prencipe Galeotto, links=no ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dan ...

'' where it is used as the culmination of the tale of Alatiel: a beautiful Saracen princess who, despite having had sex on perhaps ten thousand occasions with eight separate lovers in the space of four years, successfully presents herself to the King of the Algarve as his virgin bride. Rossetti explained in a letter to

William Bell Scott William Bell Scott (1811–1890) was a Scottish artist in oils and watercolour and occasionally printmaking. He was also a poet and art teacher, and his posthumously published reminiscences give a chatty and often vivid picture of life in the ...

that he was attempting to paint flesh more fully, and to "avoid what I know to be a besetting fault of mine - & indeed rather common to PR painting - that of stipple in the flesh...Even among the old good painters, their portraits and simpler pictures are almost always their masterpieces for colour and execution; and I fancy if one kept this in view, one might have a better chance of learning to paint at last."Treuherz, J, Prettejohn, E, Becker, E, ''Dante Gabriel Rossetti'', National Museums Liverpool. p 56. The painting may have been influenced by Millais's portrait of his sister-in-law Sophie Gray, completed two years earlier.Tate Britain, ''Millais'', 2007, p.134

Notes

{{Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1859 paintings Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

See also

Notes