About Everything

Written on August 9, 2010 – 3:59 am | by admin |

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882) was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 and was later to be the main inspiration for second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement. He was also a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement.
The son of émigré Italian scholar Gabriel Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti and his wife Frances Polidori, D.G. Rossetti was born in London, England and originally named Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti. His family and friends called him “Gabriel”, but in publications he put the name Dante first (in honour of Dante Alighieri). He was the brother of poet Christina Rossetti, the critic William Michael Rossetti, and author Maria Francesca Rossetti.
Like all his siblings, he aspired to be a poet and attended King’s College School. However, he also wished to be a painter, having shown a great interest in Medieval Italian art. He studied at Henry Sass’s Drawing Academy from 1841 to 1845 when he enrolled at the Antique School of the Royal Academy, leaving in 1848. After leaving the Royal Academy, Rossetti studied under Ford Madox Brown, with whom he was to retain a close relationship throughout his life.
During this time, Rossetti acquired an obsession for exotic animals, and in particular wombats. He would frequently ask friends to meet him at the “Wombat’s Lair” at the London Zoo in Regent’s Park, and would spend hours there himself. Finally, in September 1869, he was to acquire the first of two pet wombats.
Toward the end of his life, Rossetti sank into a morbid state, darkened by his drug addiction to chloral and increasing mental instability, possibly worsened by his reaction to the savage critical attacks on his disinterred (1869) poetry from the manuscript poems he had buried with his wife. He spent his last years as a recluse.
On Easter Sunday, 1882, he died at the country house of a friend, where he had gone in yet another vain attempt to recover his health, which had been destroyed by chloral as his wife’s had been destroyed by laudanum. He is buried at Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, England.

Self portrait, 1847
Pencil heightened with white on paper
National Portrait Gallery, London, UK ▼

The girlhood of Mary Virgin, 1849
Oil on canvas
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Ecce Ancilla Domini (”The Annunciation”), 1850
Oil on canvas
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal, 1865
Watercolour on paper
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK ▼

The first anniversary of the death of beatrice: Dante drawing the angel, 1853
Watercolour on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK ▼

Found, 1854
Oil on canvas
Delaware Art Museum
Wilmington, DE, USA ▼

Arthur’s tomb: The last meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere, 1854
Watercolour on paper
British Museum, London, UK ▼

Beatrice meeting Dante at a marriage feast, denies him her salutation, 1855
Watercolour on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK ▼

Dante’s vision of Rachel and Leah, 1855
Watercolour on paper
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

The blue closet, 1857
Watercolour on paper
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

The wedding of St. George and the princess Sabra, 1857
Watercolour on paper
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

The tune of seven towers, 1857
Watercolour on paper
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

St. Catherine, 1857
Oil on canvas
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

A Christmas carol, 1858
Watercolour and gouache on paper
Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University
Cambridge, MA, USA ▼

Writing on the sand, 1859
Watercolour on paper
British Museum, London, UK ▼

Sir Galahad at the ruined chapel, 1859
Watercolour and bodycolour on paper
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery
Birmingham, UK ▼

Bocca Baciata, 1859
Oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts
Boston, MA, USA ▼

Dantis Amor, 1860
Oil on panel
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Fair Rosamund, 1861
Oil on canvas
National Museum of Wales
Cardiff, UK ▼

Girl at a latrice, 1862
Oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK ▼

Helen of Troy, 1863
Oil on panel
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany ▼

How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival were fed with the Sanc Grael. But Sir Percival’s sister died by the way, 1864
Watercolour on paper
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Beata Beatrix, 1870
Oil on canvas
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Venus Verticordia, 1868
Oil on canvas
Rossetti Cotes Art Gallery and Museum
Bournemouth, UK ▼

The blue bower, 1865
Oil on canvas
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham
Birmingham, UK ▼

The beloved, 1866
Oil on canvas
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Monna Vanna, 1866
Oil on canvas
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Regina Cordium, 1866
Oil on canvas
Art Gallery and Museum
Kelvingrove, Glasgow, UK ▼

Sibylla Palmifera, 1870
Oil on canvas
Lady Lever Art Gallery
Port Sunlight, UK ▼

Reverie, 1868
Chalk on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK ▼

La Pia de’ Tolomei, 1880
Oil on canvas
Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS, USA ▼

Study for Pandora, 1869
Chalk on paper
Faringdon Collection Trust, Buscot Park
Oxfordshire, UK ▼

Mariana, 1870
Oil on canvas
Aberdeen Art Museum, UK ▼

La Donna della Fiamma, 1870
Chalk on paper
City Art Galleries, Manchester, UK ▼

Water willow, 1871
Oil on canvas
Delaware Art Museum
Wilmington, DE, USA ▼

Dante’s dream at the time of the death of Beatrice, 1871
Oil on canvas
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK ▼

The bower meadow, 1872
Oil on canvas
City Art Galleries, Manchester, UK ▼

La Ghirlandata, 1873
Oil on canvas
The Guildhall Art Gallery
London, UK ▼

Proserpine, 1874
Oil on canvas
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

The boat of love, 1881
Oil on canvas
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery
Birmingham, UK ▼

La Bella Mano, 1875
Oil on canvas
Delaware Art Museum
Wilmington, DE, USA ▼

The Blesse Damozel, 1878
Oil on canvas
Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University
Cambridge, MA, USA ▼

Astarte Syriaca, 1877
Oil on canvas
City Art Galleries, Manchester, UK ▼

La donna della finestra, 1879
Oil on canvas
Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University
Cambridge, MA, USA ▼

The day dream, 1880
Oil on canvas
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK ▼