Rossetti here depicts his mistress, Fanny Cornforth, gazing at the viewer or perhaps at her own reflection in a mirror. The sensual sitter represents an idealized beauty, while the artist’s use of luxurious decorative elements invites sheer visual enjoyment. Inscribed on the back of this panel is a line from a sonnet by the fourteenth-century Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio: “Bocca baciate non perda ventura, anzi rinova come fa la luna” (The mouth that has been kissed loses not its freshness; still it renews itself even as does the moon).
