Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood

Veronica Veronese

Painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1872.  Once again, Rossetti used model Alexa Wilding. Rossetti described this painting in a letter to F. R. Leland, whom the painting was for:   “The girl is in a sort of passionate reverie, and is drawing her hand listlessly along the strings of a violin which hangs against the wall, while she holds the bow with the other hands, as if arrested by the thought of the moment, when she was about to play.  In color, I shall make the picture a study of varied greens.”

In typing this, it struck me that many of Rossetti’s later works depict a woman who seems to be “arrested by the thought of the moment…”

As mentioned in this post, Rossetti painted several paintings in which musical instruments are used.

Elsewhere:

Veronica Veronese at the Rossetti Archive

Stephanie wrote, “In typing this, it struck me that many of Rossetti’s later works depict a woman who seems to be ‘arrested by the thought of the moment…’”

This seems to correspond to the beginning of DGR’s slide into overall depression. Do you agree?

Lamar

Ah, interesting thought. Yes, because I believe that along with the depression he had several obsessions (particularly animals such as wombats!) and he harbored many obsessive thought –like persecution (especially in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark). Perhaps music, and the depiction of it, was another of his obsessions that became magnified in his later years?