Regina Cordium

The picture should be compared with the epochal work of 1859, Bocca Baciata, which inaugurated the series of female portraits that would grow more and more elaborate. Grieve calls the picture “a study in shades of pink and red, deliberately naive and with the decorative qualities of a playing card” ( The Pre–Raphaelites, Tate 1984, 191 ).

DGR was at work on the painting in September 1860: as he told Madox Brown in a letter (see Fredeman, Correspondence, 60. 39 ), “I am painting [Lizzie] as the Queen of Hearts”. It was completed shortly after their marriage. In 1861 DGR painted an oil on panel portrait of Mrs. Aldam Heaton that is virtually a replica of this work. The Alexa Wilding oil portrait of the same title done in 1866 is a different work altogether.

The reversed tracing in red chalk is an especially delicate drawing.

The pansy is a symbol of thought or memory.