Valerie Lefkowitz Gallery Eleven

“‘What beauty in that countenance!’ he continued after a silence of some minutes; ‘how graceful is the turn of that head! what sweetness, yet what majesty in her divine eyes! how softly her cheek reclines upon her hand! Can the rose vie with the blush of that cheek? can the lily rival the whiteness of that hand? Oh! if such a creature existed, and existed but for me! were I permitted to twine my fingers round those golden ringlets…Never was mortal formed so perfect as this picture.’”: -Lewis, The Monk (1796).