Dante Gabriel Rossetti

A film by Dekklun Cuinn

The Portrait - a sonnet by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

THE HOUSE OF LIFE
SONNET IX
THE PORTRAIT

O Lord of all compassionate control,
O Love! let this my lady's picture glow
Under my hand to praise her name, and show
Even of her inner self the perfect whole:
That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal,
Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw
And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may know
The very sky and sea-line of her soul.

Lo! it is done. Above the long lithe throat
The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss,
The shadowed eyes remember and foresee.
Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note
That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this!)
They that would look on her must come to me.

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"The sonnet is associated with three specific pictures by DGR and with three distinct women. No hard evidence connects the sonnet to the famous picture 'Beata Beatrix', the memorial reconstruction of DGR's wife as his visionary Beatrice, but this connection is commonly made. The portrait in colored chalks of Jane Morris, signed and dated by DGR 1869 and called '[A] Portrait', was exhibited in 1883 at the Royal Academy Exhibition. According to Ford Madox Brown, however, the sonnet “was written to accompany 'Mrs. Morris in a Blue Dress'" (see Newman and Watkinson, Ford Madox Brown, 155). Finally, Stephens says that the sonnet referred chiefly to Alexa Wilding ( Dante Gabriel Rossetti 173 ).."

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/1-1868.s212.raw.html

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Beata Beatrix, circa 1864-70

[Beata Beatrix at http://lizziesiddal.com/portal/?p=154]

A Portrait, 1869

Even of her inner self the perfect whole,
The very sky and sea-line of her soul.

(Note: The above verses from Rossetti's sonnet, The Portrait
were "reportedly inscribed on the original frame.")
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s212.rap.html

Mrs. William Morris (The Blue Silk Dress), 1868

Latin verse inscription that DGR composed for the painting:
'Famous for her poet husband, and most famous for her face,
finally let her be famous for my picture!' - Link

"Though not technically a double work, the painting is connected to many of DGR's most central writings and pictures. The all but explicit connection to “The Portrait” is made via the Latin verse inscription that DGR composed for the painting. From that nexus a host of other relations proliferates, as the scholarly commentary shows. “The Portrait”, for example, has been the center of a long controversy about the specific painting to be associated with the sonnet so titled. But the truth is that DGR's whole aesthetic life was a pursuit of this ideal image of Beauty. Mrs. Morris came ultimately to represent for him perhaps the closest incarnation that he had ever known of that ideal form."

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s372.raw.html

Alexa Wilding, 1866

"So many differently inspired versions did Rossetti give us of the beauty of Alice Wilding. Nevertheless, I dare say, not a little of her charm existed mostly in the passionate heart of the painter; yet I well remember that nothing he drew of her, diverse as the delineations were, seemed less than an exact likeness. Of course, one saw her through the mood of the artist and it has sometimes appeared to me that the ardent sonnet he called 'The Portrait' referred, however generally, yet chiefly, to her, when he described how, when “my lady’s picture” was finished, he exclaimed –“Lo! it is done. Above the long, lithe throat The mouth’s mould testifies of voice and kiss, The shadowed eyes remember and foresee. Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this!) They that would look on her must come to me.” - F. G. Stephens, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1899
[from the 2006 thesis by Jennifer J. Lee: Venus Imaginaria: Reflections on Alexa Wilding, Her Life, and Her Role as Muse in the Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Link]

Alluring Alexa - an ArtMagick Art Album by stargazer

Bruna Brunelleschi - Rossetti

(bodycolour on paper)
1878
Courtesy The Fitzwilliam Museum - Link

"Rossetti wrote concerning this work: "27 Feb 1878. I have finished an old watercolour for the head of your portrait and it comes well - it is for Valpy. I did not want it to be talked about, among strangers by your name so have christened it "Bruna Brunelleschi" of course bearing on the dark complexion. I did think of calling it "Vittoria Colonna" who I find was certainly the original of those heads by M.A. which are portraits of you but I thought it would not do to tackle Mike" (from 'Unpublished Letters to Jane Morris', British Museum)."

A Portrait by Rossetti - Jane Burden Morris

Coloured chalks on paper
Signed with the artists monogram and dated 1869
43.20cm wide 52.00cm high (17.01 inches wide 20.47 inches high)
Provenance:
Leonard Rowe Valpy
Canon Valpy, his sale, Christies, Saturday May 19th 1906, lot 146, £508
Sotheran
Courtesy The Leicester Galleries - Link

"Rossetti's 'A Portrait' can be seen hanging in Canon Valpy's drawing-room [over the fireplace] in a watercolour painted c. 1900, illustrated in Susan Lasdun, 'Victorians at Home', Weidenfeldt & Nicholson, London 1981, page 127."

Rossetti - Portrait of Jane Morris Asleep on a Sofa

1869 - 1871
241mm x 151mm
Pen and brown ink and ink wash, on paper.
Bequeathed by James Richardson Holliday, 1927

Birmingham Museums and Art Galleries - Link

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The Adoration

from The Seed of David
The Adoration, 1858-64
Watercolour on paper
Information from the Tate Collection:

Rossetti and Melozzo Da Forli

I love looking at these together. Different ... but, oh the faces and the colours ... I can't help but wonder if the angel's face might have been an inspiration for Rossetti - or do they just seem quite similar?


Melozzo Da Forli, Angel playing the tambourine, circa 1480
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Hanging the Mistletoe, 1860

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - some musical instruments

Details to some works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that have a musical instrument in the composition. Earlier postings made today show the entire work and give information about it.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - "To Caper Nimbly ..." and Borgia

“To Caper Nimbly in a Lady's Chamber to the Lascivious Pleasing of a Lute”, 1850

Pen and ink on paper.

210 mm x 172 mm (8 1/4 x 6 in.)
Courtesy Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
"This original composition is followed fairly accurately by DGR's Borgia watercolour." - Rossetti Archive

Borgia, 1851-9

"Rossetti’s use of watercolour was unconventional. He created jewel like colours by applying it in an almost dry state. He also scratched, repainted and patched areas of this watercolour to accommodate changes. Rossetti also designed the frame which is one of his earliest surviving examples. It ... has medieval rosettes in the corners, referring to the Wars of the Roses in which Richard III fought."

9 1/8 x 9 3/4 in.
Courtesy Tullie House, Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery - look about half-way down page.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Hesterna Rosa

Hesterna Rosa, 1853

Pen and ink on paper
19 x 23.5cm (7 1/2 x 9 1/4 in.)
on paper, unique
Courtesy Tate Collection
Information from the exhibition Dante Gabriel Rossetti held at the Walker Art Gallery in 2003/2004.

Hesterna Rosa (Yesterday's Rose), 1865

Watercolor on paper
10 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches
Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935
DAM 1935-60
Courtesy Deleware Art Museum

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Bianca Dorata

Bianca Dorata, 1869

Pen and brown and black ink over pencil, on paper
218 mm. x 180 mm.
"From one of the painter's notebooks of about 1869."
Courtesy Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Girl singing to a lute

"This watercolour of a girl in medieval dress singing and playing a lute was made while Rossetti was staying with William Bell Scott in Newcastle in June 1853. ... It has been suggested that the drawing was done by lamplight (see Royal Academy of Arts, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, exhibition catalogue, 1973, p.29), but it is as likely that the figure is shown lit by a beam of sunlight in a shadowy interior. The girl's face is a likeness of Elizabeth Siddal, but as she did not accompany Rossetti on this trip to the north, it cannot have been done from life. ... A year or two afterwards the watercolour passed into the possession of John Ruskin, who in the mid-1850s was taking a close interest in Rossetti's painting." - from the catalogue notes
Signed with initials and dated 1853
Watercolour and bodycolour, with gum arabic
22.4 by 10.5 cm.; 8 3/4 by 4 in.

ArtMagick's collection of works by Rossetti.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) - Study of Elizabeth Siddal

"The present example seems to be one of the last of the sequence, and probably dates from the final year of Lizzie's life [she died February 1862]. In fact it was placed second to last in the Ashmolean exhibition, which as far as possible attempted to arrange the drawings in chronological order." - from the Catalogue notes

Study of Elizabeth Siddal, full-length, seated in an upholstered chair, facing left
pencil, pen and brown ink and brown wash
7½ x 5 1/8 in. (19 x 13 cm.)
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LizzieSiddal.com