Golden Water

Golden Water (1858) at the Fitzwilliam Museum likely refers to the magical golden water in the Eastern fairy tale from the Arabian Nights, which was enjoying renewed popularity in Victorian England through Edward Lane's translation of 1839. Rossetti's engagement with Eastern and magical literary sources alongside his Italian medieval subjects reflects the breadth of his literary interests and the Aesthetic Movement's general fascination with distant and exotic cultures as repositories of beauty and fantasy. Made in oil on canvas in 1858, this work belongs to Rossetti's transitional phase between his early Pre-Raphaelite mode and his mature symbolic figures. The magical water — which could cure illness and grant immortality — provided a subject combining the natural beauty of a water source with supernatural associations.

The golden quality of the water is a technical challenge: water is typically rendered in cool blues and greens, so golden water requires a warm, sunlit treatment that inverts normal expectations. Rossetti exploits warm yellows and oranges to suggest the magical rather than the natural.