Via Times Online: An exhibition celebrating the Italian origins of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, and his sister Christina Rossetti, the poet, has opened in the picturesque hilltop Adriatic seaside town of Vasto.
The centrepiece of the exhibition of specially loaned paintings, photographs, letters and books at the recently restored Palazzo d’Avalos is Dante Gabriel’s painting of his doomed wife, Elizabeth Siddal, as Beata Beatrix. On loan from the Tate Gallery, it is displayed in a room of its own on the piano nobile of the former hilltop palace overlooking Vasto’s sparkling blue bay and long sandy beach.
Jan Marsh, the biographer of both Dante Gabriel and Christina, and curator of the exhibition, said the painting, which depicts “Lizzie” as Beatrice, the muse of the great Italian medieval poet Dante Alighieri, appeared “bigger and even more luminous when singled out than it does at the Tate”. It is lit to appear glowing on a dark red background of the kind favoured by the Victorians. Read Full Article. Exhibition runs until November 16th.
Thank you very much for this information. I have written about it on my site and put a link up to your blog. I have to go to Vasto!!! Are you going?
I would love to be able to make the trip, but finances and my schedule right now wouldn’t allow it. But if you go, share the experience on your blog! I can enjoy the trip vicariously through you.
Great information! You found this before I did, Stephanie! It sounds like a great exhibit.