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The Beloved

Alternately titled: The Bride

Alternately titled: The King's Daughter

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1865-1866; 1873

Physical Description

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: 32 1/2 x 30 in.

Signature: monogram

Date on Image: 1865-66

Note: The monogram and date are inscribed at lower left.

Production Description

Production Date: 1865-1866; 1873

Exhibition History: Arundel Club Feb. 21, 1866; R.A., 1883 (no.297); Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, Grand Loan Exhibition, 1886 (no.843); Manchester, Royal Jubilee Exhibition, 1887 (no.700); R.A., Winter 1906 (no.117); R.A., 1973 (no.319); Tate 1984 (no.133)

Patron: George Rae

Original Cost: £300

Model: Marie Ford

Note: Marie Ford (wrongly called Miss Mackenzie by WMR) sat for the Bride.

Model: Ellen Smith

Note: The bridesmaid in the left foreground is Ellen Smith.

Model: Gabriel

Note: A mulatto girl, who appears in some of the sketches for this work, was eventually replaced by the little negro boy during the painting of the picture.

Model: Keomi

Note: The model for the figure on the right was Keomi, a gypsy, and paramour of Fredric Sandys.

Repainting: 1873

The painting was retouched in 1873, a repainting operation that including the replacement of the foremost figure, a brown mulatto girl, with a little negro boy.

Provenance

Current Location: Tate Gallery

Catalog Number: 3053

Archival History: George Rae; Tate 1916

Scholarly Commentary

Production History

This is the repainting of the original oil completed in 1866. Rossetti substantially modified the original oil in 1873, work that concluded with this finished oil now displayed at the Tate. No reproduction of the original state is known to exist; however, Rossetti commissioned a photograph of the work while repainting was underway.

Pictorial

The negro boy is a clear borrowing from Manet's Olympia . DGR saw the picture in Manet's studio during his 1864 trip to Paris.

Literary

The painting represents the bride of the Bible's Song of Songs unveiling for her lover. The pose identifies the viewer with Solomon and thus turns the picture into a study of art's erotic structure and function.

Bibliography

Angeli, DGR con 107 illustrazioni , 135.
Ash, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Benedetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 254.
Gowans and Gray, Masterpieces of DGR , 32.
Marillier, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial , 140.
Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , vol. 1, 104-105 (no. 182).
Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , vol. 2, plate 263.
Surtees, Diaries of George Price Boyce, 41-42.

The Beloved

Copyright: ©Tate Gallery, London 2001

Included Text

My beloved is mine and I am his.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:

For thy love is better than wine.

She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of

needlework: the virgins that be her fellows shall

bear her company, and shall be brought unto thee.

Note: These two Biblical texts are inscribed on the frame below the painting.

Reproductions

Delaware Art Museum print.
Mariller, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial , 140.
Gowans and Gray, Masterpieces of DGR , 32.
Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , plate 263.
Angeli, DGR con 107 illustrazioni , 135.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1

File Name: s182.rap.xml