The Blessed Damozel (reduced replica) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 ©Board of Trustees of National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight) The Blessed Damozel (reduced replica) DGR 1875-9 B.F.A.C., 1883 (no.72); New Gallery 1897 (no.63); Paris, Franco-British Exhibition, 1908 (no.91); Port Sunlight 1948 (no. 171); Paris 1972 (no.221); R.A., 1973; Rotterdam-Paris 1976 (no.206) F. R. Leyland 1880 £500 Leyland bought the picture “in lieu of a Hero commissioned some years previously and never executed, for which 800 gns. had been paid” ( Surtees , vol. 1, 144 [no. 244.r.1]). WMR says he bought it in late 1880, but he did not take possession until February 1881 (see Doughty and Wahl's Letters, vol. IV, 1842-46, and WMR's DGR as Designer and Writer, 110-11). Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight WHL4391 F.R. Leyland; Christie's sale May 28, 1892 (lot 55), £1,029 to the Honorable Mrs. O'Brien (later Lady Inchiquin); The Lady Lever Art Gallery oil 59 1/2 x 31 1/2 in. The picture and predella are set in an elaborate baroque gold frame. Marillier, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial , facing page 188. Gowans and Gray, Masterpieces of DGR , 61. Radford, Dante Gabriel Rossetti , 47. Delaware Art Museum, Bancroft Collection (print). Delaware Art Museum, Bancroft Collection (print). Delaware Art Museum, Bancroft Collection (print). Phythian, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , 41. Damozel only; lower part of picture not reproduced Radford, Dante Gabriel Rossetti , 48. Detail of Damozel Radford, Dante Gabriel Rossetti , 49. Detail of lover Bennett, Pre-Raphaelite Circle , plate xix. The picture has the same central figure of the emparadised woman as in the first version done for Graham, but in this version the background of lovers has been replaced by three child–angels, and the child below the damozel in the first picture has been removed altogether. Alexa Wilding <hi rend="i">Iconologia</hi> , Filippo Pistrucci , 1821 This Aldine book was in the library of DGR's father, and its illustrations of emparadised female lovers clearly inspired DGR. WMR says that this book made a great influence on DGR, in particular its “coloured allegorical designs” ( <xref doc="a.pr5246.a43.rad">Family Letters</xref> , vol. 1, 62) of women. <hi rend="i">La Vita Nuova</hi> , Dante Alighieri, 1292 Beatrice figure vision of paradise Christian Broadlands It is said that the beechwoods in the predella were painted near Broadlands, the home of the Cowper-Temples. But the report is contradicted by the fact that DGR left Broadlands in 1876, never to return; and the predella was done in 1878 (Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, 142 and n.). Commentary
Introduction

<hi rend="i">The Blessed Damozel</hi> is probably Rossetti's most famous painting. It is certainly his most elaborate presentation of the subject that interested him beyond all others: the relation of an emparadised woman to her earthly lover. The pictorial version of the subject comprises a later commentary or visual interpretation of the poem by the same title that Rossetti had written much earlier, in 1847. The subject is also at the heart of his great translation project that culminated in his collection of stil novisti verse, <hi rend="i">The Early Italian Poets</hi> .

This picture is the second of the two fully elaborated versions of the work. In its central features it replicates the original version. It differs in some notable ways from the first version, however, not least in the baroque frame (not by DGR) which so detracts from this painting. The removal of the paradise of kissing lovers reduces the formal complexity of the work and perhaps its conceptual range as well.

Production History

The picture was begun shortly after the more famous version bought by Graham, but this replica remained unsold until 1881. DGR was still working on it in April 1879 (Doughty and Wahl, Letters, vol. III, 1453, vol IV, 1632).

Iconographic

The iconography of the original painting is replicated in this one, except that here the erotics of the damozel's paradise are muted by the replacement of the kissing lovers by the child–angels.

Bibliographic

Benedetti, <hi rend="i"> Dante Gabriel Rossetti</hi> , 322. Doughty and Wahl, <hi rend="i"> Letters</hi> , vol. III, 1453, vol IV, 1632. Gowans and Gray, Masterpieces of DGR , 61. Marillier, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial , 190. Phythian Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , 41. Radford, Dante Gabriel Rossetti , 47. WMR, <hi rend="i">DGR as Designer and Writer</hi> , 110-111. WMR, <hi rend="i"> Family Letters</hi> , vol. 1, 62. Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , vol. 1, 144 (no. 244.r.1).