Introduction
In August 1878 DGR wrote to Jane Morris about an idea to
publish “some dozen autotypes of you in a book—done on a
moderate scale so as to make a large folio. . . . I should put a sonnet
to each autotype”
(
Fredeman,
Correspondence
, 78. 163
). The
project never materialized,
but we can see much of what DGR had in mind.
The idea emerged from DGR's rather extensive involvement
with another project—to have a number of his drawings and
paintings reproduced in photographic “autotype”
.
Frederick Shields proposed this scheme to DGR in 1877 (or possibly late
in 1876). Shields was a partner in the English Picture Publishing
Company, which set about to publish photographic reproductions of the
work of contemporary and earlier British artists. The company became
the Fine Art Autotype Company, and among its first reproductions were
several by DGR. His partners were Charles Rowley and George Milner, and
the company operated out of Manchester (see WMR,
<hi rend="i">Letters</hi>
, Vol. III.
1471n
).
An initial series of quality-control tests were done on the
chalk drawing of Jane Morris,
<xref doc="a.s214.rap">
<hi rend="i">Silence</hi>
</xref>
.
Proofs were eventually pulled and the reproduction was published in
1877, the first (apparently) of a series. Many but not all involved
images of Mrs. Morris. WMR said that the first
to be published was the drawing
of Mrs. Morris figured
as
<xref doc="a.s255a.rap">
<hi rend="i">La Donna
Della Finestra</hi>
</xref>
(see WMR,
DGR as Designer and Writer
,
100
).
Discussions during 1877 with Shields and his partners led to
decisions to make autotypes of the following works that featured Mrs.
Morris:
<xref doc="a.13-1878.s225.raw">
<hi rend="i">Perlascura</hi>
</xref>
;
<xref doc="a.s226a.rap">
<hi rend="i">Water
Willow</hi>
</xref>
; one of the finished
drawings of Mrs. Morris as
<xref doc="a.19-1880.s207.raw">
<hi rend="i">La Pia de'
Tolomei</hi>
</xref>
;
a
<xref doc="a.s260a.rap">study for The
Salutation of Beatrice</xref>
;
one of the
<xref doc="a.s224.rap">
<hi rend="i">Pandora</hi>
</xref>
drawings,
perhaps the one at Harvard's Fogg
Museum; one of the
<xref doc="a.1-1872.s233.raw">
<hi rend="i">Proserpine</hi>
</xref>
drawings, probably the pastel and
black chalk one in the Ashmolean; the
<xref doc="a.s213.raw">
<hi rend="i">Mariana</hi>
</xref>
drawing in the
Metropolitan museum of Art;
one of the drawings of
<xref doc="a.1-1877.s249.raw">
<hi rend="i">Astarte Syriaca</hi>
</xref>
,
probably the ink drawing originally owned
by Clarence Fry; the finished chalk
drawing, done in 1876, for
<xref doc="a.s261.rap">
<hi rend="i">Mnemosyne</hi>
</xref>
.
We can't be sure about any other images of Mrs. Morris that
DGR may have thought to include in the
<hi rend="i">Perlascura</hi>
series. The following are likely
candidates:
<xref doc="a.s256.rap">
<hi rend="i">Beatrice</hi>
</xref>
;
<xref doc="a.s206.rap">
<hi rend="i">Reverie</hi>
</xref>
;
<xref doc="a.s208.rap">
<hi rend="i">La
Penserosa</hi>
</xref>
;
<xref doc="a.s212.rap">
<hi rend="i">The
Portrait</hi>
</xref>
;
<xref doc="a.s215.rap">
<hi rend="i">The Roseleaf</hi>
</xref>
;
<xref doc="a.s216.rap">
<hi rend="i">La Donna
Della Fiamma</hi>
</xref>
.
The subtitle of the series makes an interesting cross
reference to DGR's
<xref doc="a.1-1880.s258.raw">Introductory
Sonnet</xref>
for the 1881 text of
<xref doc="a.22-1881.raw">
<hi rend="i">The House of
Life</hi>
</xref>
. In this case, each of these projected double works would
have been the equivalent of a coin of tribute to Jane Morris.
DGR started or completed seven of the projected twelve sonnets,
two of which were his translations from the
<xref doc="a.9d-1861.raw">
<hi rend="i">Vita Nuova</hi>
</xref>
of (from chapters 26 and 36):
“Tanto gentile e tanto onesta
pare”
(“My lady
looks so gentle and so pure”) and
“Color d'amore e di pietà
sembianti”
(“Love's
pallor and the semblance of deep ruth”).
Bibliographic
Edwige Schulte,
<hi rend="i">
<xref doc="a.schulte001.rad" link="dead">Dante
Gabriel Rossetti. Vita, arte, poesia</xref>
</hi>
(1986), chapter 10
Surtees,
<hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi>
, vol. 1, 127 (no. 225)).