“I was ushered into one of the prettiest and most curiously furnished old-fashioned parlours that I had ever seen. Mirrors and looking-glasses of all shapes, sizes and design lined the walls. Whichever way I looked I saw myself gazing at myself.”–Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his circle (Cheyne walk life), Henry Treffry Dunn. Henry Treffry Dunn, who was at…
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Regina Cordium (Queen of Hearts)
In 1859, Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted Bocca Baciata and it was a radical change in style. Afterwards his work gravitated towards images of a single female, quite often depicted from the bust up and surrounded by flowers, jewelry and other symbolic objects. Why the change? In the late 1850’s Rossetti had definitely matured as an artist, compared to the young…
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Elizabeth Siddal: Laying the ghost to rest
It would have been a perfect plot for a 1960’s Hammer Horror film: on the death of his wife, a poet places his manuscript of poems in her casket. Years later he has a new muse and love, a woman who had been a friend to them both. So he has his late wife exhumed to reclaim his final gift…
- Charles Augustus Howell, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, Georgiana Burne-Jones, John Ruskin, mary zambaco
The Worst Man in London
Seven years after her death, the coffin of Elizabeth Siddal was exhumed so that her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, could publish the poetry he had buried with her. It happened in secret, yet eventually the deed came to be known and has added a macabre tinge to the tale of Elizabeth Siddal. Rossetti was not present when his wife’s…
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Tennyson’s ‘Lady Clare’
“He does not love me for my birth, Nor for my lands so broad and fair; He loves me for my own true worth, And that is well,” said Lady Clare. Published in 1842, Lady Clare is a romantic ballad by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Exploring issues of class, marriage and honesty, Lady Clare is the story of Lady Clare and…