La Castagnetta

By 1863 Rossetti had turned away from the pale medieval heroines of his early years toward bust-length pictures of striking, full-lipped women, often friends or hired models. This small panel is one of the first of them. Its title means a little castanet, and the sitter snaps her fingers like a Spanish dancer. Rossetti gave it a second name as well, the daughter of Herodias, tying the same face to Salome. The model is thought to be a woman he called Aggie, one of several Londoners whose looks recur across these heads. He made it in 1863, the year after his wife, the artist and model Elizabeth Siddal, died from an overdose of laudanum.