![]() ![]() Fanny might be the only woman he shared, willingly and openly, and that is not only a rarity for Rossetti, but also can you imagine the situation now, let alone in Victorian times? It is a very odd arrangement for all involved. It’s not unusual for Rossetti to pursue another man’s wife or girlfriend, most if not all of his other lovers ‘belonged’ to someone else when he started his courtship, but it tended to be to the exclusion of the other man, forcing him out, in William Morris’ case, to Iceland. Fanny seemed to have a bit of trepidation about the arrangement Boyce recorded in his diary how Fanny worried that she would see Rossetti while out with Boyce, and he seems to have found it funny, which implies that neither man had a problem with their ménage a trois. Fanny was seeing both Boyce and Rossetti at the same time, they both were drawing her, giving her presents and she was dividing her time between them as best she could, sometimes being with them both for outings and meals. The title, the Kissed Mouth, is always presumed to refer to Fanny, promiscuous and lovely in equal measure, but what if it was also about Boyce and Rossetti? Consider for a moment the unusualness of their relationship – they knowingly and openly shared a lover. ![]() I started to think about Boyce recently while considering the meaning of Bocca Baciata. ![]()
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