Joan of Arc Kissing the Sword of Deliverance

Joan of Arc Kissing the Sword of Deliverance (1863) at the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art depicts a subject combining patriotic, religious, and female heroic imagery. For Rossetti, Joan's visionary faith, her transformation into a warrior under divine compulsion, and her ultimate martyrdom provided a figure who could unite his interests in female spirituality, medieval history, and the relationship between inner life and external action. Made in 1863 on canvas, this work belongs to the period of Rossetti's most intensive symbolic female work. Joan's kiss of the sword — a gesture of devotion to the instrument of divine will — is the kind of charged, intimate symbolic action that Rossetti repeatedly sought in his subjects, where the spiritual and the physical converge in a single gesture.

Joan in armor presents the same challenge as other armored figures — the metallic reflective surface requires different modeling from flesh or fabric. Rossetti likely emphasizes the contrast between the cold steel of the sword and the warm flesh of Joan's lips and face in this devotional gesture.