MARY MAGDALENE AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE.
The drawing of Mary Magdalene, perhaps the most perfect of all Rossetti's early works, was begun at least by 1853, and continued to occupy his thoughts in one form or another for many years. Rossetti wrote a sonnet for the picture, which is found in his first volume, called "Poems."
Another subject finished in 1858 was Mary in the House of John. The scene is at late twilight, or in an eastern night, the red glow of the sky casting a purple light over the clustered dwellings of Nazareth, with deep blue hills beyond. In the interior of the room are Mary and St. John, the latter seated in shadow, engaged in striking light from a flint; whilst Mary, standing before the tall window, fills a hanging lamp from a jar of oil.
Another important item to be recorded under 1858 is a water-colour called Before the Battle, painted for Rossetti's American friend, Professor Norton, of Harvard.
The most important work of 1859 is a highly-finished little head in oils, called Bocca Baciata, which was bought by the late Mr. Boyce. The model for this was Miss Fanny Cornforth, afterwards Mrs. Schott, whose florid type of beauty reappears in a series of sensuous pictures of the kind that Rossetti began to paint after 1862—Aurelia (Fazio's Mistress), The Blue Bower, The Lady at her Toilet, Lilith, and The Lady of the Fan. These pictures, and numerous portraits in oil and water-colour, give a sufficiently recognizable idea of this model, who exercised almost as remarkable an influence over Rossetti's life as over his art.
Bonifazio's Mistress, a specially charming little water-colour, was painted in 1860. It shows a lady (dressed in the same brightly be-ribanded flounces as Lucretia Borgia wears in the little 1851 group) who has been sitting to her lover, a painter, when suddenly she has fallen back in her chair, dead.
The connection of this subject with the poet, Bonifazio (or Fazio) degli Uberti is entirely fanciful. There can be little doubt that it was intended to illustrate Rossetti's own story of "St. Agnes of Intercession." Bonifazio's Mistress has no connection whatever either in subject or composition with the oil painting of the same name done in 1863, and afterwards re-named Aurelia. The latter is simply a three-quarter length figure of a lady plaiting her hair before a toilet glass.
This (1860) was the year of Rossetti's marriage, as has already been stated, and in June he was at Paris on his honeymoon. While there he executed two pen-and-ink drawings, one of which was the design of How they met Themselves, done to replace the earlier version of 1851, which had been lost. The other represents a scene from Boswell's "Life of Johnson," a curious source of inspiration for Rossetti, rendered more remarkable from the fact that the incident chosen is of a humorous and spicy character. Dr. Maxwell told the story how two young women from Staffordshire had come up to town to consult Johnson about Methodism, in which they were much interested. "Come," said he, "you pretty fools, dine with Maxwell and me at the Mitre, and we will talk over that subject"; which they did, and after dinner he took one of them on his knee, and fondled her for half-an-hour together.
In 1861 Rossetti's translations from the Italian poets were at last published, together with the "Vita Nuova." Rossetti thought out a very charming design of two lovers kissing in a rose-garden, which he proposed to etch on copper for the title-page. The plate, however, displeased him, and he destroyed it. The central idea of this design reappears in Love's Greeting, a panel designed for the Red House, and in a water-colour of 1864 inscribed Roman de la Rose, in which Love appears overshadowing the kissing pair with his wings.