Head by Golden Head, for "The Goblin Market"
Medium
Pen and ink over graphite
Dimensions
Image: 2 3/4 × 3 7/16 in. (7 × 8.8 cm) Sheet: 5 1/16 × 3 11/16 in. (12.9 × 9.4 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler, 2020
Accession Number
2021.16.11
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate pen-and-ink drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti illustrates a pivotal moment from his sister Christina Rossetti’s celebrated 1862 poem “The Goblin Market.” Titled after the line “Golden head by golden head,” the work depicts two sleeping sisters—likely Lizzie and Laura—whose intertwined forms evoke both vulnerability and quiet intimacy. Created in 1861 as a design for the book’s frontispiece, the small sheet captures the poem’s fairy-tale atmosphere while hinting at its darker themes of temptation and redemption. Rossetti, a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, emplo...
About the Artist
Christina Georgina Rossetti|Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British|British) · 1830 |1828 –1894 |1882
British, London 1830–1894 London|British, London 1828–1882 Birchington-on-Sea