Lady Lillith (1866-68) - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Modelling in this piece is Fanny Cornthorth, who Rossetti had repeated affairs with. Naming the piece after Lilith is a reference to the sexual nature of their relationship.
Unlike Eve, Lilith was made from the same soil as Adam, not his rib. As a result, she refused to be subservient to Adam and ended up leaving him and the garden of Eden. She became a symbol of sexual promiscuity and sin.
“She represents the New Woman, free of male control, scourge of the patriarchal Victorian family,” - Virginia M. Allen, historian.
In some Jewish traditions, mothers tie red string to their newborns wrist to ward off lilith. In this depiction of Lilith, she has tied a red hibbon to her own left wrist as if embracing her own 'sinful' nature.