Hellelil and Hildebrand + The Queen and The Soldier
From BBC Culture : Forget Romeo and Juliet or Rose and Jack: Frederic William Burton's achingly beautiful depiction of Hellelil and Hildebrand's last moment together will stay with you forever. So say the painting's many new fans on social media, where it has been stratospherically popular. Though it dates back to the 19th Century, a surge of TikTok videos about viewing The Meeting on the Turret Stairs – both online and in real life – has gone viral, describing the painting as "a breathless moment" and "life changing". It might have been made the most vulgar thing in the world, [but] the artist has raised it to the highest pitch of refined emotion – George Eliot Painted in large, vivid swathes of red and blue, Burton's 1864 watercolour Hellelil and Hildebrand, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs boldly illustrates the couple's final tryst before Hildebrand's painful death. Here, the prince meets with the love of his life, Helleli...
