Isabelle Boccaccio

This late watercolor attests to the continuation of Pre-Raphaelite styles and themes into the twentieth century. It incorporates a similarly jewel-like color scheme, and typical medieval setting, as well as a figure whose far-away expression, full, sensual lips, auburn hair, and elongated neck are direct descendants of earlier Pre-Raphaelite images of women. The title makes reference to the works of Boccaccio, the fourteenth-century Italian poet admired by Pre-Raphaelite artists, or possibly to John Keats’ tragic poem “Isabella, or the Pot of Basil,” itself derived from the Decameron. Whatever the image’s literary source, the slight bend in the figure’s posture and furtive backward glance as she makes her way along a path accompanied by four ravens, birds often associated with death, lend the image a mysterious quality and point to a narrative that lies beyond the visual elements.