Image caption Dylan got together with Rotolo in 1961, just before he found fame

Bob Dylan's former girlfriend Suze Rotolo, the inspiration for some of the singer's love songs, has died at 67.

Rotolo also appeared with Dylan on the iconic cover of his 1963 breakthrough LP The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

She inspired such songs as Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, Boots of Spanish Leather and Tomorrow Is a Long Time.

Her friend and Village Voice critic Jim Hoberman wrote that she died in her New York apartment "and the arms of her husband of 40 years, Enzo Bartoccioli".

Dylan met Rotolo, then 17, after a gig in 1961 and the couple stayed together for three years.

Dylan later wrote that meeting her "was like stepping into the tales of 1,001 Arabian nights", adding: "She had a smile that could light up a street full of people... a Rodin sculpture come to life."

Rotolo went on to become an artist and teacher. She also wrote a memoir of life in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, A Freewheelin' Time, which was published in 2008.