I recently published an article on Substack, where I shared my all time favourite red-haired image: the Florence Harrison illustration that accompanied Christina Rossetti's poem Dream-Love. (In my original post about the image - way back in 2018 - I linked it to another Rossetti poem, the similarly titled Dream Land. I'm now fairly sure I was wrong, but I remain confused - see below).
Anyway, as I reinvestigated I came across a few more red-haired images ..and also a little bit of uncertainty over who Florence Harrison actually was. As it turns out there were two, and they often get mixed up. (In fact, back when I first posted I remember having difficultly finding information about the artworks.)
One is Florence Susan Harrison, an Australian artist - this is the Christina Rossetti illustrator, who produced the so-loved image we're discussing.
The other is an Emma Florence Harrison, an English artist, who, confusingly, also made art on similar themes - fairies and whatnot.
These two great articles explain it all:
I also came across the following article that was a nice little read:
On this page there's a book leaf image of the the illustration, and underneath is a line from the poem Dream-Love. So it must indeed have been that poem.
"Young Love lies drowsing"
Also, it's worth noting that the colouring of this image is a little different. The hair colours not quite as red.
This often happens when images are photographed, copied, edited, etc - and it can be hard to tell, especially when online, what colouring the true original had. So we often find different versions of a painting or illustration. Some with very red hair, others not so red. Obviously, here we have a bias towards the redder ones.
The Other Redhead Images
After all that I'll now share the other redhead images. (These are also from Florence Susan Harrison.) They're not quite as ethereal as the one above, but they have a flair, charm and wonder.
For closer inspection of the images see here:
N.B. Substack
Finally, a little note on the Substack. It's not replacing here as the main repository for thoughts and snippets. It's more a side project, where maybe we can present things in a slightly different style and reach a different audience. You could say it'll be more public-facing and this is where you'll see under the bonnet. Though, as ever, things tend to meander, as time takes its course.
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