I’m always fascinated by this picture by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Holman Hunt. It is a depiction from a scene in Keats poem Isabella. For those of you who don’t know her deceased lover’s head is I the pot of basil! The detail in the picture is extraordinary and Hunt has an amazing ability to depict the slightly translucent material of her dress. Hunt’s wife Fanny Waugh modelled for the picture in Italy not long before her death in childbirth (an all too common thing in those days). Hunt then scandalised the nation by marrying his deceased wife’s sister Edith. Those Victorian’s eh? Who’d have guessed it!
Fair Isabel, poor lovely Isabel, Who could but look upon those soulful eyes, And not with every being realise, That those black pools a sacred secret tell, And must betray a soul that loved too well, But did not love too wise. And at your feet a withered flower lies. And in your arms your lover casts his spell. And in your face we read the sign of doom, That passes o'er those features in a wave, Within that heat oppressed Italian room, No cleansing spring can e'er your dark locks lave. As futures never starting, never ending, loom Within your long forgotten foreign grave.
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