Who needs a selfie-stick when you have Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his Pre-Raphaelite gang painting you?

In 19^th century England, the Pre-Raphaelite men could paint you into any scene, any myth you desired, and the raunchier the better! Each woman they painted had the opportunity to be an ideal lover, a goddess, or a symbol of sexual desire. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Rossetti in particular, were called “the fleshy gentlemen”, using their paintbrushes to “sext”.  Each painting is full of sexual tension, each member of the Brotherhood painting their mistresses into rather revealing scenes. These beauty-focused men gave us sex symbols, paving the way for our beloved Instagram models. But think about the beautiful and famous today, we love their faces but it’s their debaucherous backstories and digressions that we crave. For these painted ladies, it was no different, the Brotherhood brushed over their flaws, but they didn’t gain fame until the back-stories emerged.

So, let’s talk about Fanny Cornforth, this lovely lounging lady. Rossetti painted her in 1868 as Lady Lilith, the mythic first wife of Adam, an evil temptress and seductress, a token “dime” and mean girl. This drew on all of Fanny’s strengths because let’s be honest, Fanny was all about the body in her day job as a prostitute. But as painted by Rossetti, her figure, face and shampoo-ad golden red hair enchant and doom men and are the envy of women, again, much like our Instagram stars. The desire to sleep with Fanny over and over gave Rossetti the opportunity to paint her over and over. Because of Rossetti’s obsession with her body, the world is littered with paintings of Fanny in any number of erotic poses, but it’s her rather raunchy rise to pictorial fame that makes us really pay attention.

And like many stunning faces, Fanny’s beauty didn’t sustain her forever, or even really that long.  Four years after being painted as Lady Lilith, her face was shamelessly and rudely overpainted with the face of another of Rossetti’s muses, a stunner named Alexa Wilding. According to Rossetti, or his patron, Wilding’s face was more of a fit for the beautiful and dangerous seductress. Still, Fanny – or “Elephant” as he nicknamed her – was Rossetti’s housekeeper (hmmm) until his death in 1882.

Despite her face being heartlessly painted over, Fanny’s body, and undeniable sex appeal, paved the way for future – now present – women, such as our beloved Jenners and Kardashians, to earn renown based on their revealing photos. But ultimately, it’s also the scandalous and self-absorbed lives of these women that keep us titillated with their “self-image”. Thank you Fanny, and thank you Dante. Without you, social media hounds would never have risen to their current heights, perpetuating the never-ending cycle of beauties surpassing beauties in a constant game of who’s the best seductress, and who can get over a million views. But I think Fanny has already won this battle.