Rossetti’s Lady Lilith

“And round his heart one strangling golden hair…”

Staring at herself in a dark mirror not unlike Dr. Dee’s, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Lady Lilith is an icon of sensual beauty. I have always pictured Lily MacPhee, the young girl Kate befriends in Haunt Me Still, as Rossetti’s Lilith come to life:

“Lily MacPhee had her grandmother’s wide-set eyes and high cheekbones, though her coloring was entirely different. Flame-red hair spilled in waves past her shoulders. Her milk-white skin was scattered with freckles like stars, and her eyes were a pale sea-green. A small jewel winked in her nose. The Pre-Raphaelites, I thought, would have fought bitter duels among themselves for the right to paint her as Guinevere or the Lady of the Lake.”

Rossetti named his mirror-gazing beauty after an ancient goddess; these days Lilith usually appears in tales as Adam’s first wife, the first witch, or a primordial female demon. It seemed the perfect name for my character as she fired to life.
 

Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1872-73)
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware

My Lily, though, has a dash of Botticelli, as well:

“On her head was a wreath of creamy rowan blossoms that frothed with a heady sweet scent as she moved. In her dress, she might have walked out of a painting or poem by Rossetti, or Millais, or Burne-Jones. But the red hair curling loosely around her was that of Botticelli’s Aphrodite.”

Detail from The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1486)
Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Rossetti later wrote a poem about Lilith:

Beauty like this is strangely powerful, and desire has always seemed to be a dangerous kind of magic. Still, I find it endlessly fascinating that both men and women have so often suspected beauty to be evil.

 
 
More Inspiration and Illustrations for Haunt Me Still