Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Day Dream Painting ID:: 3576 Dante Gabriel Rossetti1.jpg
The Day Dream 1880
62 1/2 x 36 1/2 in (157.5 x 92.7 cm) The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Dante Gabriel Rossetti A Vision of Fiammetta Painting ID:: 3578 Dante Gabriel Rossetti3.jpg
A Vision of Fiammetta 1878
57 1/2 x 35 in (146 x 89 cm)
Private collection
Dante Gabriel Rossetti A Sea Spell Painting ID:: 3579 Dante Gabriel Rossetti4.jpg
A Sea Spell 1877
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Dante Gabriel Rossetti La Bella Mano Painting ID:: 3580 Dante Gabriel Rossetti5.jpg
La Bella Mano 1875
Delaware Art Museum
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Sancta Lilias Painting ID:: 3581 Dante Gabriel Rossetti6.jpg
Sancta Lilias 1874
Tate Gallery, London
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Proserpine Painting ID:: 3582 Dante Gabriel Rossetti7.jpg
Proserpine 1874
46 x 22 in
Tate Gallery, London
Dante Gabriel Rossetti La Ghirlandata Painting ID:: 3583 Dante Gabriel Rossetti8.jpg
La Ghirlandata 1873
Guildhall Art Gallery, London
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Beata Beatrix Painting ID:: 3584 Dante Gabriel Rossetti9.jpg
Beata Beatrix 1872
34 x 26 in
Tate Gallery, London
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Veronica Veronese Painting ID:: 3585 Dante Gabriel Rossetti10.jpg
Veronica Veronese 1872
43 x 35 in
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Dante's Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice Painting ID:: 3586 Dante Gabriel Rossetti11.jpg
Dante's Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice 1871
Walker Art Gallery,Liverpool
Dante Gabriel Rossetti La Pia de' Tolomei Painting ID:: 3587 Dante Gabriel Rossetti12.jpg
La Pia de' Tolomei
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Joli Coeur Painting ID:: 3588 Dante Gabriel Rossetti13.jpg
Joli Coeur 1867
Dante Gabriel Rossetti How Sir Galahad, Sir Boys and Sir Percival were fed with the Sanc Grael ; But Sir Percival's Sister Painting ID:: 3589 Dante Gabriel Rossetti14.jpg
How Sir Galahad, Sir Boys and Sir Percival were fed with the Sanc Grael ; But Sir Percival's Sister 1864
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Saint Catherine Painting ID:: 3590 Dante Gabriel Rossetti15.jpg
Saint Catherine 1857
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Saint Catherine Painting ID:: 3591 Dante Gabriel Rossetti16.jpg
Saint Catherine 1857
Dante Gabriel Rossetti King Rene's Honeymoon Painting ID:: 3592 Dante Gabriel Rossetti17.jpg
King Rene's Honeymoon
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Bower Meadow Painting ID:: 3593 Dante Gabriel Rossetti18.jpg
The Bower Meadow 1872
33 1/2 x 26 1/2 in
Manchester City Art Galleries, England
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Pandora Painting ID:: 3594 Dante Gabriel Rossetti19.jpg
Pandora 1869
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Monna Vanna Painting ID:: 3595 Dante Gabriel Rossetti20.jpg
Monna Vanna 1866
35 x 34 in
Tate Gallery, London
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Fair Rosamund Painting ID:: 3596 Dante Gabriel Rossetti21.jpg
Fair Rosamund 1861
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Tune of Seven Towers Painting ID:: 3597 Dante Gabriel Rossetti22.jpg
The Tune of Seven Towers 1857
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Paolo and Francesca da Rimini Painting ID:: 3598 Dante Gabriel Rossetti23.jpg
Paolo and Francesca da Rimini 1855
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal Painting ID:: 3599 Dante Gabriel Rossetti24.jpg
Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal 1854
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise Painting ID:: 3600 Dante Gabriel Rossetti25.jpg
The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise 1853-54
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Regina Cordium Painting ID:: 3601 Dante Gabriel Rossetti26.jpg
Regina Cordium 1866
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Astarte Syriaca Painting ID:: 3602 Dante Gabriel Rossetti27.jpg
Astarte Syriaca 1877
Oil on canvas
72 x 42 in
Manchester City Art Gallery
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Salutation of Beatrice Painting ID:: 3603 Dante Gabriel Rossetti28.jpg
The Salutation of Beatrice 1859
Oil on two panels
Each 29 1/2 x 31 1/2 in (74.9 x 80 cm)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Aurea Catena Painting ID:: 3604 Dante Gabriel Rossetti29.jpg
Aurea Catena
c. 1868
Graphite and colored chalks on blue wove paper
30 3/8 x 24 5/8 in
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Beloved Painting ID:: 3605 Dante Gabriel Rossetti30.jpg
The Beloved 1865-66
32 1/2 x 30 in
Tate Gallery, London
English Pre-Raphaelite Painter, 1828-1882
Rossetti's first major paintings display some of the realist qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite movement. His Girlhood of Mary, Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini both portray Mary as an emaciated and repressed teenage girl. His incomplete picture Found was his only major modern-life subject. It depicted a prostitute, lifted up from the street by a country-drover who recognises his old sweetheart. However, Rossetti increasingly preferred symbolic and mythological images to realistic ones. This was also true of his later poetry. Many of the ladies he portrayed have the image of idealized Botticelli's Venus, who was supposed to portray Simonetta Vespucci.
Although he won support from the John Ruskin, criticism of his clubs caused him to withdraw from public exhibitions and turn to waterhum, which could be sold privately.
In 1861, Rossetti published The Early Italian Poets, a set of English translations of Italian poetry including Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova. These, and Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, inspired his art in the 1850s. His visions of Arthurian romance and medieval design also inspired his new friends of this time, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Rossetti also typically wrote sonnets for his pictures, such as "Astarte Syraica". As a designer, he worked with William Morris to produce images for stained glass and other decorative devices.
Both these developments were precipitated by events in his private life, in particular by the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal. She had taken an overdose of laudanum shortly after giving birth to a stillborn child. Rossetti became increasingly depressed, and buried the bulk of his unpublished poems in his wife's grave at Highgate Cemetery, though he would later have them exhumed. He idealised her image as Dante's Beatrice in a number of paintings, such as Beata Beatrix.
These paintings were to be a major influence on the development of the European Symbolist movement. In these works, Rossetti's depiction of women became almost obsessively stylised. He tended to portray his new lover Fanny Cornforth as the epitome of physical eroticism, whilst another of his mistresses Jane Burden, the wife of his business partner William Morris, was glamorised as an ethereal goddess.