Bocca Baciata (Lips That Have Been Kissed) 1859 By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Famous Paintings

Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted Bocca Baciata in 1859, one of the artist's most famous paintings of women.

Rossetti’s Pre Raphaelite paintings represent a turning point in his career. Bocca Baciata is the first of several portrait paintings depicting single female sitters, and it marks the start of Rossetti's unique signature style.

This painting illustrates a move away from Rossetti’s earlier artistic style, which was heavily influenced by Medieval Art and culture. Bocca Baciata has more Venetian art sensibilities, with careful handling of paint and an opulent color palette. The luxurious treatment of the woman’s red-golden hair creates a truly sensual and captivating oil painting.

Who is the woman in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's famous painting?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting features Fanny Cornforth, a professional artistic model from Sussex, England. She gazes out of the pictorial frame, perhaps at Rossetti or a mirror reflecting her beauty.

For Rossetti, Fanny Cornforth, born Sarah Cox, represents the platonic ideal of beauty. Her skin is pale white and almost translucent, while her rounded red lips hint at the artist’s longing.

Dante Rossetti’s opulent decorative touches, such as luxurious fabrics, flowers, and jewelry, add to the visual enjoyment, inviting art lovers to enjoy Fanny Cornforth’s beauty.

Who was Fanny Cornforth?

Despite this romantic background, Fanny Cornforth performed the more mundane role of housekeeper for Dante Rossetti. She adopted this role after the death of his wife, Elizabeth Siddal.

Nonetheless, Rossetti’s depictions of Cornforth are notably more voluptuous and sensual than his paintings of other lovers and muses, such as Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal. 

Although Rossetti's brother, William Michael Rossetti, praised Fanny Cornforth’s beauty, he was shocked at her lower-class upbringing as the daughter of a blacksmith. William Rossetti stated that Fanny Cornforth had no “charm of breeding, education or intellect.” Many of Dante Rossetti’s friends and family held similar opinions and pressured the artist to cease the relationship.

What inspired Rossetti's Pre-Raphaelite Art?

Rossetti’s Pre Raphaelite paintings were inspired by the 16th century Venetian Italian Renaissance artists including Titian. The artist Titian also depicted idealized beauty and sensuality in his famous paintings, including his nude portrait of Venus of Urbino.

Rossetti’s mistress and model, Fanny Cornforth, inspired some of his most sensual oil paintings. As his artistic muse and general housekeeper, she also became a creative collaborator on many of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's famous paintings of women during the 1860s.

Cornforth appears in multiple portraits of this era, for instance, Fair Rosamund 1861, Lady Lilith 1867, Found (1869), and The Holy Grail (1874)

In a letter written to the Scottish artist William Bell Scott, Dante Gabriele Rossetti describes trying to master the art of painting flesh and skin. In this letter, he identifies a self-perceived fault of stippled brushwork. Rossetti aimed to recreate a fuller and rounder representation in his famous painting, Bocca Baciata.

Dante Rossetti even accused the “old good painters” of a similar flaw, claiming that the skin tones in their masterpiece paintings lacked reality. Inspired by this challenge, he redoubled his efforts in Bocca Baciata with stunning results.

What is the meaning of Bocca Baciata?

The painting’s title translates from Italian as “mouth that has been kissed.”

This saying is from an Italian proverb inscribed in Italian by Rosetti on the back of one of his most famous paintings. A rough translation states, “The mouth that someone kisses doesn’t lose its fortune: it renews itself like the moon.”

Dante Rosetti was a highly proficient translator of early Italian Renaissance literature, and his poems frequently allude to Italian folklore and culture. 

Rossetti likely encountered the proverb in Boccaccio's The Decameron, a 14th-century collection of short stories recounting the tale of Alatiel. Alatiel was a beautiful Saracen princess who reportedly had ten thousand sexual encounters with eight different lovers over a period of four years. Despite this, the King of the Algarve selected her as his virgin bride.

Although Rossetti’s pre-Raphaelite paintings significantly shift his artistic style, they also maintain his close literary interests and connections.

Bocca Baciata is an accomplished candid portrait containing multiple layers of allusion. The artist depicts Fanny Cornforth in the front center of the pictorial plane, almost close enough to reach out from the canvas. Despite this, her physical proximity contrasts with the psychological distance.

Cornforth gazes out of the picture, but she doesn’t look directly at us. Is she possibly hinting at separation or strife within the artist Dante Rossetti instead of the viewer? Is she perhaps suggesting perceived ownership and their closeness as a couple?

What art movement are Dante Rossetti’s paintings?

Bocca Baciata is a prime example of Rosetti’s Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Rossetti co-founded the movement alongside leading avant-garde creatives such as John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, William Michael Rossetti, and Frederic George Stephens.

With seven members, the Pre Raphaelite artists, critics, and writers prized excellent detailing in art. The Pre Raphaelite painters, exemplified by Rossetti, favor intense colors combined with the complex compositions in early Italian Renaissance paintings.

Altogether rejecting the “mechanical” approach of the later Mannerism art movement, Pre Raphaelite paintings focus on classical poses and elegant pictorial depictions inspired by early Renaissance masterpiece paintings.

Possibly influenced by an earlier work by John Everett Millais and his Portrait of Sophie Gray, Rossetti’s Bocca Baciata radiates Pre-Raphaelite iconography. The inclusion of the apple in the bottom-left corner is particularly intriguing. The apple could reference the original Biblical sin depicted in the Book of Genesis, hinting at a tempestuous and often adulterous love affair.

Why did Dante Rossetti paint Lips That Have Been Kissed?

George Price Boyce commissioned Bocca Baciata in July 1859. However, Rossetti’s exact reasons for painting the portrait are mysterious. 

George Boyce was also a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. As a close friend and frequent patron of Rossetti, Boyce happily lent the portrait to the Royal Academy in 1883 to further Rossetti’s name and publicity. Appearing in an Exhibition of Old Masters, the painting was a critical success.

Charles Fairfax Murray later purchased the painting in 1887. Dante Gabriele Rossetti’s famous painting changed hands several times after that. Mrs. Edward Brandegee purchased it and later passed it on to her son-in-law, James Lawrence.

Lawrence donated the portrait in his Will to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA. To this day, they proudly display the painting in their fine art collection.

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