Head of Dante
Seymour Kirkup (?)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti(?)
1839 (circa)
Physical Description
Medium: oil and lithopone on canvas
Dimensions: 41.5 x 31.5 cm
Production Description
Production Date: 1839 (circa)
Provenance
Current Location: Private Collection
Note: The picture has been proven to be a nineteenth-century work by
Professor Conte Daniele Radini Tedeschi. It is possible that
the picture may even be a copy made by DGR from Kirkup's copy, but
the evidence for that has yet to appear.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
File Name:
op15.rap.xml
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This oil painting copies a detail from a fresco in the Magdalen Chapel of Florence's Bargello, discovered under whitewash by Seymour Kirkup in 1839. According to Marillier, one of the discoverers of the fresco, ostensibly Kirkup himself, sent a copy of the work to Gabriele Rossetti, DGR's father, as a gift. This image profoundly influenced Rossetti's own depictions of Dante, as is evidenced in Giotto Painting the Portrait of Dante , painted in 1852.
Bibliography