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Marillier, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial, 196-197
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WMR, DGR Designer and Writer, 107-108
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Sharp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 257-259
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Stephens, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 74-75.
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Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 151-152 (no. 255).
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Treuherz, Prettejohn, and Becker, DGR, 208-209 (no. 144).
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Wildman, Visions of Love and Life,
312-314.
This collection contains 24 texts and images, including:
Fogg Museum of Art oil
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This comprises a kind of double work, given the fact that DGR appropriated the Dantean text as his own through his extraordinary translation (see commentary below).
Production History
Begun in 1870 with various studies and early versions of the general design, DGR did not complete the oil version until 1879. The earlier studies are often more impressive than the late oil, however—most notably, for example, the pastel now located at Bradford and the pastel now at Whitworth, a picture that never left DGR's possession.
Literary
The painting illustrates the text in the later part of the Vita Nuova when Dante is grieving over the loss of Beatrice and suddenly sees “a young and very beautiful lady, who was gazing upon me from a window with a gaze full of pity, so that the very sum of pity appeared gathered together in her” (see DGR's translation The New Life).