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Document Title: The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Studies Special Issue: A Rossetti Cabinet: A Portfolio of Drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Editor: William E. Fredeman
Date of publication: 1991
Publisher: The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Studies
Printer: Morriss Printing
Volume: II
Issue: 2

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

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JPRAS is published semi-annually in the Spring and Fall. Contributions should be submitted to the Editors, Department of English, #397-1873 East Mall, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1W5. Business communications and enquiries should be addressed to Mr.s Joan Selby, 1649 Allison Road, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1S7.
Co-Editors: William E. Fredeman, Department of English, UBC
Ira B. Nadel, Department of English, UBC
Art Editor: Rhodri Liscombe, Department of Fine Arts UBC
Associate Editor: Jane C. Fredeman
Honorary Editor: Francis Golffing, Peterborough, NH
Production Manager: Ronald McAmmond
Business & Subscription Manager: Joan Selby, Vancouver
Editorial Assistant: Leonard Roberts, Vancouver
EDITORIAL BOARD
Florence Boos, University of Iowa
Antony Harrison, North Carolina State University
George L. Hersey, Yale University
Fred Kirchhoff, Indiana University/Purdue University
Jack Kolb, University of California, Los Angeles
George Landow, Brown University
David Latham, University of Lethbridge
Roger Lewis, Acadia University
Dianne S. MacLeod, University of California, Davis
Jerome McGann, University of Virginia
Roger Peattie, University of Calgary
David G. Riede, Ohio State University
Richard L. Stein, University of Oregon
ADVISORY BOARD
Susan P. Casteras, Center for British Art, Yale University
James Dearden, Ruskin Galleries, Bembridge
Rowland Elzea, Delaware Art Museum
Conrad Festa, College of Charleston
L.M. Findlay, University of Saskatchewan
Christopher Forbes, Forbes Magazine
Cecil. Y. Lang, University of Virginia
Carole Silver, Stern College, Yeshiva University
Adeline R. Tintner, New York City
Raymond Watkinson, Brighton, England
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  • THE JOURNAL OF
  • PRE-RAPHAELITE
  • AND AESTHETIC
  • STUDIES
Editorial Note (page ornament): [three flower ornaments]
Editorial Note (page ornament): [device of the publisher, featuring the initials JPRAS within a circle]
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Note: Photograph of the Rossetti family taken by Lewis Carroll in the back garden of 16 Cheyne Walk on October 7, 1863. Shown, from left to right, are Christina, Dante Gabriel, William Michael and Maria Rossetti, with their mother Frances Lavinia.
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A

ROSSETTI

CABINET

A Portfolio of Drawings by

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Hitherto Unpublished, Unrecorded,

or Undocumented

Including

Studies for Known and Unexecuted Paintings,

Original Early Drawings,

Portraits and Caricatures,

Designs, and Juvenilia

A Special and Final Vancouver Issue of

THE JOURNAL OF

PRE-RAPHAELITE

AND AESTHETIC

STUDIES
Editorial Note (page ornament): [three flower ornaments]


(II:2 Fall 1989)

Edited by

William E. Fredeman

With the Technical Assistance of

Robin Alston and Ronald McAmmond



1991



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The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite & Aesthetic Studies has been published semi-

annually since 1988 by the PRB Foundation of Pre-Raphaelite & Aesthetic Studies.

From January 1991, it will be published by Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

85267-1505. Contributions should be sent to the Editor, Julie Codell, Director,

School of Art, at this new address.
New Subscription rates (U.S. Funds)

Individual: $25

Institutional: $40
Offprint charges to contributors are available on request.
Copyright © A Rossetti Cabinet:
  • Introduction and Catalogue: William E. Fredeman
  • Plates: The owner of the drawings.
ISSN: 0835-7099
Copy logo design: Martin Jackson, Vancouver, B.C.

JPRAS is typeset at The Typeworks, Vancouver, B.C. and printed by Morriss Printing

in Victoria, B.C.
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A Rossetti Cabinet

is dedicated

with love and admiration

to the daughter and granddaughter

of William Michael Rossetti
Helen Rossetti Angeli and Imogen Dennis
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CONTENTS
  • Introduction ix
  • Catalogue 1
  • Plates:
  • I. Studies for Known and Recorded Pictures ( 1-21)
  • II. Studies for Unexecuted Works ( 22-33)
  • III. Early Drawings after 1843 ( 34-44)
  • IV. Portraits and Caricatures ( 45-67)
  • A. Known Subjects ( 45-53)
  • B. Unidentified Subjects ( 54-57)
  • C. Caricatures ( 58-67)
  • V. Designs and Miscellaneous Drawings ( 68-73)
  • VI. Juvenilia to 1843 ( 74-113)
  • A. Illustrations for Literary Works ( 74-89)
  • B. Humorous Drawings and Caricatures ( 90-96)
  • C. Miscellaneous Childhood Drawings ( 97-113)
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Introduction
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A Rossetti Cabinet, which records the largest single collection of the artist's work remaining in private hands, is intended as a supplement to Virginia Surtees' indispensable The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882): A Catalogue Raisonné (1971). Unlike Surtees, the Cabinet contains no major pictures or watercolours and consists solely of drawings, but its 177 works add significantly to the formal record of Rossetti's artistic oeuvre. The drawings are not, of course, uniform in interest, but the Cabinet is remarkable both for the number of important drawings it contains and for the high quality and finish of many of the studies. A few of the drawings might be dismissed as mere scraps or studio sweepings, but in the context of the collection as a whole, the principal strength of which lies in its value as a resource for iconographic documentation, even these have an historical interest, which doubtless explains why they were preserved intact as a portfolio. All the drawings, including the five in my personal collection and the single drawing from over a hundred in Rossetti's correspondence derive from the same source.
In the main unreproduced and undocumented, the collection includes an amazingly wide range of drawings: over twenty preliminary studies for known and executed pictures and a dozen for unexecuted ones: two dozen portraits, ten caricatures, and nine designs; and just over a hundred juvenile and early drawings. Thirty-nine of the plates (74-113), most with more than one drawing, are devoted to works produced before Rossetti's sixteenth year; by contrast, Surtees has eleven pre-1844 entries, only two of which are illustrated.
Many of the juvenile drawings are obviously copies of the fashionable, cheap, and crudely coloured theatrical and chivalaric prints that as children the Rossetti brothers collected so assiduously. Others are inspired by the illustrations of prominent artists such as Phiz, Gavarni, Tony Jahannot, and Martin and Westall (for the Bible). Still others reflect Rossetti's early reading in Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Cervantes, Monk Lewis, Meinhold, Mrs. Browning, and Mrs. Crowe, and his fascination with both The Arabian Nights and with classical and ballad literature. A small group are illustrations for Rossetti's own early literary works—his ballad “William and Marie” (83), his prose tale "Sorrentino" (88), and a poetic drama, "The Slave" (105b), the last two no longer extant; one illustrates his father's poem Lisa and Elviro (89). While many of the juvenile drawings illustrate unidentified literary subjects, others are clearly generic in terms of theme or subject matter, such as the four groups of chivalric figures in Plates 105-108. In terms of their aesthetic merit the drawings vary enormously, but the collection documents far more thoroughly than any surviving archive, the early sources of Rossetti's artistic imagination; it also enhances considerably our understanding of the evolution of his early style.
It is a commonplace among art critics to assert Rossetti's indifference to such artistic essentials as perspective, form, and draughtmanship, and one of the most significant features of the drawings in the Cabinet, which are characterized by their diversity of subject, style, and technique, is the evidence they provide of his conscious efforts to master his craft, to discover ways of translating imaginative ideas into workable artistic forms. That individual drawings may be unsuccessful is offset by the cumulative number
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and variety of the works included. Indeed, the Cabinet can be regarded as a kind of retrospective visual diary or commonplace book that provides a mini-overview of Rossetti's development as an artist.
Part I includes at least six drawings that can with certainty be regarded as the original conceptional sketches for major pictures, similar to my study for Found (S.Appendix 4, not reprinted in the Cabinet), which was given such a prominent position in the catalogue of the 1973 Rossetti retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy. In this class are the studies for The Salutation of Beatrice (1), Rosa Triplex (9), La Pia (12a), Pandora (13), The Blessed Damozel (14), and The Bower Meadow (17). Another six— Mary Magdalene (2), The Early Italian Poets — The Rose Garden (3), Monna Rosa (11), La Donna della Fiamma (15), Michael Scott's Wooing (16), and Desdemona's Death Song (20)—if they are not the initial studies for the pictures in question, clearly represent important stages in the evolution of the final conception.
Studies for executed pictures, because they lend themselves to comparison with the finished works, have an inherent interest for students of art. Studies for unexecuted pictures, even when they are only visual fragments like some of those in Part II, provide valuable insights into the workings of the artist's imagination. When, like Michael Scott's Mistress (24), Cassandra (25), Lady Lilith (30), the Lady with a fan (32), and the Lady wearing her hair in a chignon (33), they also exhibit a higher degree of finish or execution, they transcend any taxonomical attempt to relegate them to a subordinate class and assume independent status in the canon.
In presenting the drawings, which have no particular order in the portfolio, it has seemed expedient to arrange them in descending order of interest rather than to follow a strict chronological pattern along the lines of Surtees and most catalogues raisonné, even though inevitably this plan necessitated some concessions and arbitrary decisions. The juvenilia in Part VI, for example, while important iconographically, are in the main less visually attractive than works consigned to other sections. A clear exception, however, is the last drawing in Part VI, Date obulum Belasario (113). Among the best of Rossetti's early drawings in the Cabinet, it is placed here rather than among the Early Drawings in Part III, which in general consists of more finished works, only because of its probable date. In Part IV, the portraits and better caricatures in the Cabinet are grouped irrespective of date by size or subject, without regard to whether the drawing technically belongs among the juvenilia. Some pairings of drawings on a single plate have, admittedly, been dictated by spatial considerations, but throughout the emphasis has been on achieving aesthetically satisfying pages through the rational grouping of related drawings.
The unimpeachable provenance of the Rossetti Cabinet precludes any question of attribution. Virtually all the drawings are annotated by William Michael Rossetti, whose archival instincts led him to preserve and record, both for posterity and for his own use in his many publications on his poet-artist brother, all documents relating to Dante Gabriel's literary and artistic productions. Because William's familiarity with his brother's work was so intimate that even his speculations are normally reliable, his annotations are cited in full in the Catalogue. That he was not infallible, however, is indicated by his misidentification of Plate 11 as a study for Fleurs de Marie (Marigolds) rather than for Monna Rosa ; and two of the most amusing annotations on the drawings are exchanges, written years apart, between William and his daughter Helen Rossetti Angeli, in which she challenges her father's reservations about attributing a particular drawing to her uncle (see 58, 101). William's dating is frequently tentative, but more often than not accurate, at least within the range he suggests. One of the drawings he identifies as his own (the reverse show-through portrait of Holman Hunt in 50a); another appears to be by Maria Rossetti (the juvenile sketch of Clifford from Henry VI in 99a). The remainder are all by Dante Gabriel.
Needless to say, the annotations in the Catalogue rely heavily on William's notes on
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the drawings and on information provided in his other publications. How many, even among serious aficionados of nineteenth- century fiction, would recognize the characters in Plate 84 as belonging to Catherine Crowe's Susan Hopley? Or comprehend without William's gloss the subtlety of intent behind the humourous sketch for Scott's Lord of the Isles (91a), assuming one recognized the source of the Brucescare? The attempt in the Catalogue has been, wherever possible, to provide contextual-type notes, and to that end they draw on many sources besides William Michael, including Rossetti's letters, Surtees, and other reference works; but William's notes proved absolutely crucial to an understanding of many of the drawings.
Every drawing entered in the Catalogue is reproduced, though not every sketch on the backs of the drawing pages has been included. Many are too trivial or too faint to merit recording representationally, but in each instance a notice of their existence is provided. As already mentioned, the vast majority of the drawings in the Cabinet have never been published before 1977, when the archive was discovered, three in Marillier (Plates 39a, 68, 88, all reduced) and one in the Building World (Plate 73). Four others appear as loose leaves on coloured paper in a small envelope entitled Four hitherto unpublished drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, privately printed in nine copies by Tony Savage at Leicester in 1977 (45b & c, 91b, and 110a). Twenty of the best drawings appeared in my "Rossetti Gallery" in Victorian Poetry in 1982 (see the headnote to the Catalogue), but the reproductions were too severely reduced, cropped, or badly lighted to convey an accurate sense of the originals. Only four of the individual drawings and the set of illustrations for The Arabian Nights (Plates 68, 73, 78-81, 88, and 89 [S.16, 707, 7/7A, 10/10A, 11]) are catalogued in Surtees; none is illustrated.
In all but five instances (Plates 47, 68, 69, 70, 111), the plates in the Cabinet are adapted from direct contact positives made from the original drawings by Robin Alston in 1977, using a vacuum-exposure process developed by him and then available at his Janus Press in Ilkley, Yorkshire. The virtue of the Alston process over photography is two-fold: first, it produces accurate size-for-size impressions, without camera adjustment, since none was used; second, its sensitivity is such that it records every minute detail visible to the naked eye, including the paper-edge and the faintest pencillings on the drawing; even the show-throughs on the reverse side of the thinner papers on which the drawings are executed are picked up. The results are much subtler reproductions of drawings than are ordinarily available. With a few exceptions where it has been necessary to crop the paper image to accommodate page size (as in the two fold outs [Plates 4 and 33] and a few other cases—the Kelmscott drawings used on the title-page and the dropped head for the plates, for example, have been reduced), every drawing is reproduced full-size with the paper-edge and a thin film-edge visible, but for some of the smaller drawings in Part VI, the paper-edge may be too faint to detect.
Since most of the drawings are untitled, catalogue designations tend to be descriptive rather than precise, except for those studies for named pictures or drawings for which either Rossetti himself or his brother provides a working title. Despite intense research, many of the subjects for the drawings remain elusive; it has seemed preferable, however, to employ, even more frequently than one might wish, the signifiers "unknown" and "unidentified" than to indulge unduly in creative speculation.
It remains, finally, only to acknowledge my indebtedness to the three Rossetti specialists on whose work I have drawn most heavily, William Michael Rossetti, H. C. Marillier, and Virginia Surtees; and to my technical collaborators, Robin Alston and Ronald McAmmond. Without the assiduity and careful research of the former, the catalogue would be far less informative than I hope it now is; without the genius and design expertise of the latter the publication of the Cabinet could never have been realized.
August 4, 1990 William E. Fredeman
Vancouver, Canada
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Catalogue of the Drawings
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Measurements are in centimeters, height by width, and refer to paper size unless otherwise noted in the descriptions. Except for three instances where two numbered plates appear on the same page (46-47, 70-71, 93-94), one plate that occupies a double opening (84), and another double opening (85) numbered a & b, plate numbers refer to the drawings on a single page. When two or more drawings appear on a page under a covering caption, they are given separate letter numbers. Full documentation for works cited is provided in the entries, but a number of recurring abbreviations are employed. Dante Gabriel and William Michael are referred to throughout by their initials. The four major reference works cited in the notes are all abbreviated: FLM refers to WMR's memoir of DGR (1895); PRDL to Praeraphaelite Diaries and Letters (1900); H. C. Marillier's Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An Illustrated Memorial of his Art and Life (London: Bell, 1898), is abbreviated Marillier; DW refers to the 4-vol. edition of Letters, ed. Oswald Doughty and J. R. Wahl (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965-67); entry numbers in Virginia Surtees' Catalogue Raisonné (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971) are indicated by S followed by a period (as S.113), page references by an S only. Parenthetical Gallery numbers following titles or descriptions refer to my pilot study for the Cabinet, "A Rossetti Gallery," published in the special Rossetti centenary double number of Victorian Poetry (20.3/4 [Autumn-Winter 1982]: 161-86), which consisted of reduced reproductions of "Twenty Unpublished Drawings, Including Initial Sketches for Major Works, Juvenilia, Caricatures, Portraits, and Studies for Known and Unexecuted Pictures." Finally, titles of drawings are italicized only when they derive from DGR or Surtees.
Preliminaries
Frontispiece: Unpublished photograph of Christina, Dante Gabriel, William Michael, and Maria Rossetti and their mother, Frances Lavinia, taken by Lewis Carroll in the back garden of 16 Cheyne Walk on 7 October 1863, the sole surviving group portrait in which all four Rossetti children appear. Carroll's four-day expedition at Cheyne Walk is documented verbally in his Diaries (ed. R. L. Green [London, 1953]), visually in Helmut Gernsheim's Lewis Carroll: Photographer (London, 1949). Of this print, Christina Rossetti wrote, describing the day “the author of Wonderland photographed us in the garden”: “It was our aim to appear in the full family group of five; but whilst various others succeeded, that particular negative was spoilt by a shower, and I possess a solitary print taken from it in which we appear as if splashed by ink” (quoted by Mackenzie Bell, Christina Rossetti [London, 1898]: 134), from her article on Tudor House in Literary Opinion (2 [1892]: 127-29). The print, a gift from Helen Rossetti Angeli in 1963, is in the collection of William E. Fredeman.
Title-page and fly-title for Plates: the two sets of pencil sketches (both on card stock, 18x25.4 ), one of four, the other of two, Kelmscott designs for the background of Rossetti's Water Willow (S.226, Pl. 324), have been reduced for purposes of design.
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Plates
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I. STUDIES FOR KNOWN AND RECORDED PICTURES


  • Plate 1. Two ladies with fans. Preliminary study for The Salutation of Beatrice (S.116A, Pl. 173). Pencil and gouache on heavy-duty, yellow-gray card stock, 18.7 x 17.2, c. 1848. An unreproduced drawing of a 15th/16th-century lamp is on the reverse with a description in DGR's hand, endorsed by WMR: “Gabriel's handwriting c/48.”


  • Plate 2. Study for Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee (S.109, Pl. 156). Pencil with chalk highlighting on lined note paper, 22 x 18.1, c. 1858. WMR: “By Gabriel-c. 1865—This is evidently a sketch of the Magdalen subject done I suppose either to give some one else an idea of the composition or rather to try an alteration. The sketch over-page might perhaps be a Cassandra, or else another Magdalen.” While the implication of WMR's annotation is that the drawing antedates the finished subject, there is no reason to think it is not a preliminary study for the picture. For the Cassandra on the reverse, see Plate 25.


  • Plate 3. Study for The Early Italian Poets (S.125, The Rose Garden, Pl. 191-92; Love's Greeting, S.126, Pl. 195). Pencil on card stock, 14.5 x 11.3, c. 1861. WMR (verso): “Slight sketch of lovers kissing, first done as a frontispiece to Early Italian Poets—watercolour named The Rose Garden.”


  • Plate 4. Full-length cartoon for central figure in The Return of Tibullus to Delia (S.62, Pl. 56). Pencil, 35.3 x 27.7, c. 1862. Endorsed by WMR (verso).


  • Plate 5. Drapery study for The Return of Tibullus to Delia . Pencil on card stock, 28.2 x 20.3. WMR (verso): “G. drapery of Tibullus c. 1862.”


  • Plate 6. Drapery study for Helen of Troy, virtually identical, but with slight variations, with S.163A, Pl. 233. Pencil on card stock, 17.6 x 11.6. WMR (verso) “c./64 By Gabriel.”


  • Plate 7. Drapery study for Paolo and Francesca (S.75.R.1, Pl. 88). Pencil on card stock. 14.5 x 13. Though endorsed by WMR, “G drapery of Paolo/c.1855,” the drawing is clearly, from the positioning of the feet, a study for the later, Leathart version of the picture and dates from c. 1862.


  • Plate 8. Study of birds, perhaps for Bethlehem Gate (S.159, Pl. 226) or The Seed of David (S.105, Pl. 139). Pencil on lined note paper, 19.5 x 15.35 with piece (2.5 x 3) cut out from right edge, c. 1863-65? WMR (verso): “? sketch for birds in Dante's Dream/By G. I think.” While birds appear in a number of DGR's pictures besides Dante's Dream and the two others cited, including The Damsel of the Sanct Grael (S.91, Pl. 117), the later version of The Annunciation (S.131, Pl. 200), Beata Beatrix (S.168, Pl. 238), La Pia (S.207, Pl. 300), A Sea Spell (S.248, Pl. 367), and A Vision of Fiammetta (S.252, Pl. 366), the birds most closely resembling those in this study, both in form and movement, though in each case flying in the opposite direction, are those in the foreground to the two works cited. The attribution, however, while more convincing than WMR's, is not at all conclusive, and the study may simply be generic.


  • Plate 9. An early sketch for Rosa Triplex (S.238, Pl. 348; Gallery 10). Pen and ink, 18.1 x 22. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel. c. 1865.” Almost certainly DGR's first rough idea for the picture. The instructions in DGR's hand pertaining to the staircase and the drawings of the two flower pots must refer to a different picture, perhaps Mary Magdalene (see S.109, Pl. 156).


  • Plate 10. Profile sketch of head in title-page of The Prince's Progress (S.185, Pl. 272). Slight pencil sketch on card stock, 16.2 x 11, c. 1865-66. WMR (verso): “The profile on other side seems to be for the title-page of Prince's Progress.” An indistinguishable partial drawing on the reverse has not been reproduced.


  • Plate 11. Study for Monna Rosa (S.198, Pl.289; Gallery 11). Pen and ink, 22 x 19.5, c. 1867. On reverse of a sketch identified by WMR as “Michael Scott's Wedding” (see Plate 16). WMR (verso): “The sketch over-page may be related to Fleurs de Marie. ” While I accepted WMR's attribution in “The Rossetti Gallery,” the drawing bears little resemblance to Marigolds (S.235, Pl. 335).


  • Plate 12. Initial design for La Pia de' Tolomei and The Token (S.207, Pl. 300; Gallery 12). Pen
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    and brown ink on handmade lined note paper with undated watermark; the entire drawing measures 22 x 18.2.

    a. La Pia , inside a ruled box (approximately 5.5 cm square). Inscribed by DGR: “La Pia fingering her ring—rushes, water and the foot of a castle seen in the mirror. Yellow iris in a glass in the foreground. Little mirrors all round the large one, with the same reflection.” WMR (recto): “By Gabriel 1868.” This sketch was executed before the earliest sketch traced by W. D. Paden in his monograph on the picture ( Register of the Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 2/1 [November 1958]: 1-48).

    b. The Token . “The Token—Girl cutting off lock of hair. Pugliesi” (in DGR's hand). This drawing, which occupies the upper right-hand corner and measures approximately 6 cm square, appears to be a preliminary version of a later drawing treating the same subject (see Plate 26).


  • Plate 13. Initial sketch for Pandora (S.224, Pl. 318; Gallery 15). Pencil on lined note paper, containing part of what appears to be a diary, 19.7 x 13.2, c. 1869. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel? First notion for Pandora.” The drawing has at one time been pasted into an album.


  • Plate 14. Initial sketch for The Blessed Damozel (S.244, Pl. 355; Gallery 14). Pencil, 22 x 18.2, on lined note paper on which has been overwritten a recipe for “Bran Tea for Sore Throat.” WMR (recto): “By Gabriel-c. 1869-must be a first rough notion of a Blessed Damozel.” On reverse: a page of random notes, apparently part of a diary, in DGR's hand: “A. Meyer (apparently) 171 New Bond St. writes Feb 27/68 that he has 21 'Pre-Raphaelite' Italian pictures”; “size of La Pia for Valpy 19 1/4 x 15 1/2”; recipe for eye bath; “Elgin £ 21-3/"”; “Went to Durham 30 May/69”; “L's Venus 30 + 23”; “Rolands up to 14 Nov.”; “June/70 lent Parsons 2 blue india scarves & a little silver one.”


  • Plate 15. Initial sketch for La Donna della Fiamma (S.216, Pl.308; Gallery 13). Pen and brown ink on lined note paper, 20.5 x 17.2, c. 1869. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel.” This sketch is probably the initial composition for DGR's chalk drawing, which was never executed in oils. The model, however, appears to be Fanny Cornforth rather than Jane Morris, who posed for the finished picture.


  • Plate 16. Study for Michael Scott's Wooing (S.222, Pl. 313). Pencil on lined note paper with undated watermark, torn from notebook, 22 x 19.5, c. 1871. WMR (recto): “By Gabriel-c. 1865—must be Michael Scott's Wedding.” In both his Diary (ed. Odette Bornand [Oxford, 1977], 40) and in this annotation, WMR refers to “wedding” as opposed to “wooing” when citing this picture; but DGR's stanza and prose summary ( Works [1911], 214, 616) are both entitled “Wooing,” as was the picture when it was exhibited at the RA in 1883. According to WMR ( Works 668), DGR “made two or three drawings of this subject of invention, diverse in composition. He contemplated carrying out the subject in a large picture, which was never executed; I am not certain whether a water-colour of it was produced or not.” In the Art Journal for 1884 he describes another finished pen and ink sketch for the subject (quoted S 124n.2). For DGR's 1853 treatment of Michael Scott, the source of which, according to Watts-Dunton was a novelette by the Ettrick Shepherd, James Hogg, entitled Mary Burnet (see S.56, unillustrated). Another possible source is Allan Cunningham's Michael Scott (1828), although DGR denied that he had read that work. For DGR's drawing Michael Scott's Mistress see Plate 24; for the drawing on the reverse, see Plate 11.


  • Plate 17. Preliminary sketch for The Bower Meadow (S.229; see Pl. 328 illustrating 229B). Pen and ink on sheet of stationary, 18.7 x 11.5; left corner (6.7 x 6) torn away, c. 1872. WMR (verso): “Seems to be by Gabriel”; small drawing on reverse, visible in show through, not reproduced.


  • Plate 18. Full figure study for La Bella Mano (S.240, Pl. 341; Gallery 16). Pencil, 22.7 x 18.2, c. 1874. WMR (verso): “G. for Bella Mano.” The positioning of the hands in the drawing casts some doubt on WMR's attribution, but the verso draft P.S. to a letter to William Bell Scott, dated 3 May 1875, tends to support the date.


  • Plate 19. Study of hands and bracelet for La Bella Mano . Pencil on handmade paper with half watermark "18," 11.2 x 17.5. WMR (verso): “G. for Bella Mano.”


  • Plate 20. Desdemona's Death Song , with a sketch in outer margin of Desdemona's right hand (S.254; see Pl. 379-82; Gallery 17). Pen and ink on handmade white stationery with 8mm mourning border on back, 18.2 x 22.7, paper watermarked
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    1876. WMR (verso): “G. slight sketch for Desdemona's Death Song.” One of the original sketches for this subject, which DGR was considering as early as 1872. A number of finished drawings and studies for this work are extant; the oil version, the last on which the artist was engaged at the time of his death, was never completed. A semi-finished oil head , cut from the canvas when 3 St. Edmund's Terrace was bombed, was given to William E. Fredeman in 1963 by Helen Rossetti Angeli (S.254H).


  • Plate 21. Two studies for The Sonnet

    a. Study for the angel in The Sonnet (S.258; repro. William Sharp, DGR: A Record and A Study [1882], frontis.). Pencil tracing, 9 x 17.8, attached to another piece of paper, 10.7 x approx. 20, c. 1880. WMR (verso): “G./The Sonnet.” The drawing represents a refinement on the study of the angel reproduced in Surtees (S.258A, Pl. 387). For another drawing of an angel in flight, facing left and probably not for The Sonnet, see Plate 28a.

    b. Design for the surround of The Sonnet . Pencil on undated watermarked handmade paper, 18 x 23.1, drawing size 11 x 17.1 c. 1880. WMR (verso): “?By Gabriel—for the Sonnet.”
II. STUDIES FOR UNEXECUTED WORKS


  • Plate 22. The Irish Harp . Pencil on handmade unwatermarked paper, 22.8 x 17.8, on reverse of Plate 40. Endorsed by DGR (lower right corner): “the Irish Harp/a new design,” and by WMR (upper left corner): “By Gabriel/c. ‹1846 &› 1847.” The figure “2” is written in red ink and “H5” in pencil.


  • Plate 23. “Venus surrounded by mirrors reflecting her in different views.” Pen and ink on handmade paper, 9.7 x 18, 1863-66. With further endorsement by DGR: “(see article on mirrors in Smith),” i.e., Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, a copy of the 1842 edition of which, with woodcuts, DGR owned (Cheyne Walk sale, 1882, Lot 530), and a memo either to send or that he had sent a “Set of L[izzie]'s ‹ drawing › photos to Allingham.” WMR (verso): “By Gabriel c. 1863.” That DGR sent a portfolio of photographs (prints from the glass negatives he had made, now in the Ashmolean) from Elizabeth Siddal's sketches—“many mere scraps, but all interesting”—to Allingham on 8 November 1866 (DW 701), perhaps argues for a later date for this drawing, assuming the endorsement is contemporaneous with it. On reverse is an unreproduced drawing of a picture over an altar with chalice, candlestick, etc., endorsed by DGR: “Una figura della donna mia.”


  • Plate 24. Michael Scott's Mistress (Gallery 19). Pen and ink on handmade lined paper with undated watermark, 22 x 18.2. Nude figure (torso), with flowing hair, holding a cup. Inscribed by DGR: “Napkin round foot of cup/Owls in both top corners” (upper right): “bed for background” (bottom). WMR (verso): “By Gabriel-c.1865.” For note on Michael Scott and DGR's drawing for Michael Scott's Wooing, see Plate 16.


  • Plate 25. Cassandra (Gallery 18). Pencil on lined note paper, 22 x 18.2, c. 1865. For WMR's tentative identification of this drawing, see his annotation on the verso of Plate 2. While the subject is almost certainly Cassandra, it appears unrelated to S.127 (Pl. 196).


  • Plate 26. [ The Token] . Pencil on lined, undated watermarked note paper, 22 x 18.2; drawing in box 12.5 x 9.5. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel-c. 1865-The sketch over-page must be a subject he thought of executing, a Damsel cutting off a lock of hair to give to her lover.” Plate 27 on reverse. See also Plate 12b.


  • Plate 27. Study for an unknown work. Two female figures, one gazing in a mirror or elevating an object, perhaps an infant; the seated figure may be unrelated. Pencil, 22 x 18.2, c. 1865, dated by association with drawing on reverse dated by WMR in his annotation ( see Plate 26).


  • Plate 28. Two studies for unknown works.

    a. A smirking angel in flight, facing left, similar to the design for The Sonnet (see Plate 21a). Pen and brown ink on undated watermarked paper, 9.9 x 18.1, n.d. WMR (verso): “I suppose this is by Gabriel but it doesn't look much like his work.”

    b. Girl reclining on a sofa. Pen and ink and pencil on handmade lined, undated watermarked paper, 10.1 x 18.1. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel-c. 1865.”


  • Plate 29. Girl with Shell. Pencil on handmade
    Image of page 5 page: 5
    Note: Text appears in two columns on the page.
    unwatermarked stationery, 18.1 x 11.5, c. 1865-70. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel –I think he at one time projected a picture ‘The Sea-Shell.’”


  • Plate 30. Lady Lilith (Gallery 20). Pen and ink over pencil, with pencilled background, 22 x 18.4. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel –c. 1869 –Eden Bower.” Given to William E. Fredeman by Mrs. Imogen Dennis, 30 January 1974. This drawing, contemporary with DGR's poem, composed according to WMR between 2 August and the end of September, illustrates the lines:



    • In the ear of the Snake said Lilith:—
    • ( Sing Eden Bower!)
    • “To thee I come when the rest is over;
    • A snake was I when thou wast my lover.”
    • “I was the fairest snake in Eden:
    • ( Alas the hour!)
    • By the earth's will, new form and feature
    • Made me a wife for the earth's new creature.”
    • “Take me thou as I come from Adam:
    • 10 ( Sing Eden Bower!)
    • Once again shall my love subdue thee;
    • The past is past and I am come to thee.”


    The drawing has nothing in common with Lady Lilith (S.205, Pl. 293), which illustrates The House of Life sonnet “Body's Beauty” (LXXVIII).


  • Plate 31. Study for an unknown work. Haloed figure, perhaps Daphne (?), who appears to be undergoing a metamorphosis. Pen and ink on undated watermarked mourning stationery, 18.2 x 11.6. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel I suppose.” The style is reminiscent of Girl with a Fan (S.721, Pl. 498), which Surtees dates c. 1870, but the stationery might place it earlier, say around the time of Elizabeth Siddal's death in 1862.


  • Plate 32. Lady with a Fan. Pen and brown ink on undated watermarked paper, 16.5 x 11.2, c. 1870. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel.” Although similar in design to Woman with a Fan (S.217, Pl. 310), with which it shares the same model, Fanny Cornforth, and the general Spanish motif, this drawing, which was probably executed at about the same time, appears to be independent of the crayon drawing.


  • Plate 33. Lady wearing her hair in a chignon, facing left . Crayon, 33 x 23.4, c. 1870-72. This drawing may be a study for Bride's Prelude (S.221A), reproduced in T. Martin Wood's Drawings of Rossetti (London, n.d., Pl. XXV), from a Hollyer photograph and entitled “Lady with a Fan,” which appeared in the Cheyne Walk sale (1883) with the same title and dated c. 1872 (Lot 11). Surtees regards that drawing as a study for another drawing (S.221) reproduced in Marillier (183) and identified by him conjecturally as a “supposed design for ‘The Bride's Prelude,’” and follows his dating of c. 1870. The present whereabouts of both drawing, neither of which she reproduces, is indicated as unknown. Marillier's drawing (No. 236 in his catalogue) was then in the collection of WMR, a provenance not cited in Surtees.
III. EARLY DRAWINGS AFTER 1843


  • Plate 34. Turkish dancers, girl with turbaned man with pipe. Heavy, overscored pen and brown ink, 16.1 x 13.1; dated in DGR's hand “Dec/44.” WMR (verso): “Gabriel.” This and the next three drawings are closely related in style and subject to S.615-17 (Pl. 447-48) and may be part of a series. Owing to the overscoring, a patch on the girl's right foot has chipped away, here filled in.


  • Plate 35. A man and a girl seated beneath the tree, beside a pond . Heavy, overscored pen and brown ink, 17.9 x 13.7; dated by DGR “Dec/44.”


  • Plate 36. Standing female, reminiscent of Dulcinea in Don Quixote , with other figures in background to right and left. Heavy, overscored pen and brown ink on card stock cut at angles on top edges, 20.4 x 15; dated by DGR “April/46.” See Plate 37.


  • Plate 37. Standing female, in part a study for the above, with numerous female heads overdrawn. Heavy overscored pen and brown ink on card stock cut at angle on top edges, 20.4 x 15, c. 1846. Plate 36 on reverse.


  • Plate 38. Female figures with serpent-entwined cross.

    a. Pencil on gray, handmade stationery, corners cut off, with undated watermark, 16.5 x 9.2, signed (reversed monogram “G.C.D.R.”) and dated “June/46.” WMR (verso): “By Gabriel. ” The drawing is related to S.22, 23 and 624, all of which are

    Image of page 6 page: 6
    Note: Text appears in two columns on the page.
    reproduced (Plates 9, 10, 450), and perhaps to S.25, which is not. Although it clearly illustrates a literary work, the source is uncertain, perhaps J. W. Meinhold's Sidonia the Sorceress (S.22) or Elizabeth Barrett Browning's “The Romaunt of Margret” (S.25, S.624). A slight sketch on the verso has not been reproduced.



    b. Fragmentary study for the above. Pencil, 9 x 16.5, on cut-off strip of paper, divided into two panels. WMR: “By Gabriel.” The attitudes of the female figures in the first panel are quite different; the grotesque dwarfish man in the second panel, which includes on the right a clinched fist, bears some resemblance to figures in drawings for Faust and Poe's “Raven,” which were done at the same time.


  • Plate 39. Two chambermaids.

    a. Chambermaid with taper. Pencil pasted on heavy graph paper, 22.3 x 13.5, dated by DGR “Sept./46.” Not in Marillier's catalogue, but reproduced (216) in reduced format (11.5 x 4.5); not in Surtees.

    b. Smaller version of similar subject. Pen and brown ink, 10.8 x 4.9, c. 1846. Writing in Italian on verso.


  • Plate 40. Ghost scene illustrating an unknown subject (Gallery 3). Pen and ink, 22.8 x 17.8. WMR (verso, upper left corner) “By Gabriel,” and in lower right corner “ ‹ 1846 › 1847.” Plate 22 ( The Irish Harp ) on the reverse. WMR singles out this drawing among DGR's early work: “Undated, but belonging I suppose to 1847, is a drawing clever in its way, of a man seated, and reaching toward a frenzied ghost; two other figures are evidently unconscious of the apparition” ( FLM 98). The drawing bears a close resemblance, both in technique and subject to early DGR illustrations for Poe, Faust, and Sidonia the Sorceress (see Surtees, Plates 4-7, 9-10, 14-16, 21-22).


  • Plate 41. Design for unknown work. Pen and ink and pencil on handmade lined paper with undated watermark, 16.8 x 21, c. 1846-47. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel.” The apprehensive look on the face of the central figure, who seems to be resisting some force pulling him against his will, and the imploring attitude of the figure on the right suggest that this work may belong to what DGR sometimes refers to as “bogie” drawings, like the ghost scene of Plate 40, but this is only to hazard a guess, and the design is placed here for convenience. A slight sketch on the verso, visible in show through, has not been reproduced.


  • Plate 42. Comic encounter between a cavalleria rusticana leaning on a sword and a large girl holding a bouquet of flowers. Pen and brown ink on machine-made paper, 23.3 x 17. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel c. 1846,” with other writing in Italian. This drawing, which has a distinct stage-like or operatic quality, reflects the influence of Gavarni, on which WMR remarks in FLM (97-98).


  • Plate 43. Standing couple, holding hands. Faint pencil sketch, 17.3 x 12.5. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel c. 1846.” Perhaps an illustration for Sidonia the Sorceress.


  • Plate 44. [ Bohemian Skit. The German Student] (Gallery 4). Heavy, overscored pen and ink, with some chipping, 18.2 x 14.5. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel c./53?47?” That this picture perhaps belonged to a series is suggested by the pencilling on the verso, where “No. 8” is deleted and replaced by “No. 11. ” The subject is unidentified.
IV. PORTRAITS AND CARICATURES
A. Known Subjects


  • Plate 45. Four Portraits.

    a. Elizabeth Siddal. Pencil on octagonal card stock, 7.9 x 6.5, c. 1850. WMR (verso): “G/May be an early profile of Miss Siddal.” The likeness falls somewhere between the 1850 sketch (S.457, Pl. 421) and the caricature, “Stunner No.1” (S.598; repro. Marillier 219).

    b. Jane Morris. Pen and brown ink on blotting paper with image on both sides, 8.7 x 6.4, c. 1860's. Both this and the next early portrait of Janey were reproduced on loose leaves in the envelope of Four hitherto unpublished drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti , privately printed in nine copies in Leicester by Toni Savage, 1977.

    c. Jane Morris. Pen and brown ink, 10.8 x 10.6, c. 1858-60. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel –Sketch of Mrs. Morris.”

    d. Maria Rossetti. Pen and ink on brown paper, 6.6 x 6.6. Endorsed by WMR on verso: “This sketch, made on a writing-book of my father of
    Image of page 7 page: 7
    Note: Text appears in two columns on the page.
    about 1847, must be by Gabriel—I think it certainly represents Maria and (so far as I remember) it is the sole record he made of her face. WMR 1/1 –1901.”


  • Plate 46. Anna Marie Howitt (Gallery 7). Pen and ink, 15.7 x 10.3; executed on a half sheet of unwatermarked mourning stationery, the drawing is undated, but probably dates from 1852-54, when DGR saw a fair amount of the Howitts. WMR (verso): “Miss Howitt by Gabriel.” On reverse is a small partial head and a tiny pen and ink drawing of a rider in boots with crop, which WMR endorses: “I don't think this is Gabriel's –? Millais? ” (not reproduced).


  • Plate 47. Elizabeth Siddal. Pen and ink, 8.9 x 4.5, c. 1852-54. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel.” In the collection of William E. Fredeman, a gift of Mrs. Imogen Dennis.


  • Plate 48. Three portraits.

    a. Emily Rosaline Orme (Coventry Patmore's niece). Pen and ink, 11.4 x 7.1, c. 1852-54. WMR (verso): “Miss Orme by Gabriel.” The last four letters of “Emily” are visible beneath the drawing.

    b. Agnes Monetti, DGR's model. Pen and ink, 11.8 x 11. WMR (verso): “Seems to be Aggie c/64” (see S.262, Pl. 396).

    c. Margaret Polidori (DGR's aunt). Pen and ink, 10.8 x 9.3. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel/Margaret Polidori/c. 1850.” This is DGR's only known portrait of Aunt Margaret.


  • Plate 49. Miss Williams (?). Pen and ink on wove lined unwatermarked note paper, 18.8 x 14.4, n.d. WMR (verso): “Is this Miss Williams –of who G. made a drawing at request of Valpy?/By Gabriel. ” The drawing bears no resemblance to the 1879 chalk portrait of Edith Williams (S.537; repro. Sotheby Cat., 15 Mar. 1983, Lot 52).


  • Plate 50. Two portraits of Holman Hunt.

    a. Head of an unknown woman, with left profile head of Holman Hunt by WMR on reverse, visible upside-down as show through. Pen and ink on unwatermarked wove paper, 11.1 x 11.3. WMR (verso): “Hunt by WMR/c. 1852” The woman's head is presumably by DGR.

    b. Pen and ink on machine-made paper, 11 x 9, c. 1850. WMR (verso): “Holman Hunt ?by G.”>

    Plate 51. Standing portraits of Henry Polydore and DGR. Both heavy, overscored pen and brown ink drawings, with evident chipping.


  • a. Henry Polydore. 18.3 x 11.4, c. 1848-50. WMR (verso): “Henry Polydore by Gabriel.”

    b. Self-portrait, to right. 18.3 x 11.4, c. 1848-50. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel – Must be meant for himself but is not at all like.”


  • Plate 52. Two heads: Alexa Wilding (?) and unidentified man with mutton chops . Pencil sketches on sheet of handmade stationery embossed on reverse “10 Savile Row W.” and containing a prescription from Dr. John Marshall dated 1 Nov. 1869, 18.2 x 11.3. Sheet also contains address of Coventry Patmore: “ Patmore/Old Lands/Cuckfield/Sussex.” WMR (verso): “The sketches are by Gabriel.” The female head bears a striking resemblance to Venus Verticordia .


  • Plate 53. Gabriele Rossetti. Two pencil portraits, left profile, standing, on undated handmade watermarked paper.

    a. 17.8 x 11.4. WMR (verso): “This is a slight sketch of our Father done by Gabriel towards Feb. or March/82 with a view to assisting the sculptor for the Vasto monument—He was too ill to do anything efficient.”

    b. 17.9 x 11.4. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel/ Sketch of my father done in Feb. or March 1882 for Vasto. G. then too ill to do himself justice.” DGR actually made three drawings, but the third, in right profile, is damaged by ink smears and has not been reproduced. This is probably the last work attempted by DGR before his death.
B. Unidentified Subjects
C. Caricatures


  • Plate 58. Cavalier Mortara. Pen and brown ink on wove paper, 18.3 x 11.5, 1842-44. WMR (verso): “I can't make this out—Hardly think it is Gabriel's –If it is his, wd be as far back as 1842 or so.” Beneath WMR's note, Helen Rossetti Angeli has added: “ I think it is his –& may be a caricature of Cavalier Mortara.” The date may be somewhat later than WMR conjectures.


  • Plate 59. Quartier Latin. The Modern Raphael and La Fornarina (Gallery 2). Heavy, overscored pen and ink, 22.8 x 18.8, on wove paper, title inscribed in DGR's hand at bottom. Verso (DGR): “Gabriel Charles fecit March 22 (Good Friday) 1845.” Slight pencilling on reverse. The drawing is so heavily inked and the paper so brittle that some chipping has occurred. The drawing, evincing clearly the influence of Gavarni, depicts an artist standing before an easel on which he has painted a picture of an earlier artist (Raphael?) painting a picture of a seated model. A largish model stands beside him resting her arm and head on his shoulder, while she looks at the painting. On the floor (right) are sundry props: a bottle, a goblet, a sword, and a statuette of a knight. WMR cites this drawing among DGR's juvenilia in FLM, but mistranscribes the title, substituting “her” for “La” (98).


  • Plate 60. Fancy Portrait: John Knocks (X) (Gallery 5). Pen and ink, with some chipping, 18 x 11.5; title inscribed in DGR's hand, unsigned and undated, but c. 1848, as WMR's endorsement of the four slight heads (not reproduced) on verso suggests: “By Gabriel –The two female heads on this page may be slight sketches of Christina and Maria –c. 1848.” Whether the roman numberal indicates the drawing is one of a series is not known.


  • Plate 61. Artist's Studio (Gallery 6). Pen and ink on wove paper, 11.2 x 18.1. WMR (verso): “By Gabriel, c. 1849.” Probably a self-caricature, the drawing depicts a pipe-smoking artist seated in a chair with his feet propped up on either side of an easel on which rests a picture of a woman's head and torso. Behind the artist (left) appears a female figure, perhaps one of DGR's sisters; behind the artist (right) is a seated male figure playing the mandolin. A palette is on the floor in the foreground. The drawing is not unlike some of the other early Pre-Raphaelite studio cartoons.


  • Plate 62.