The Salutation of Beatrice Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1880-1881 “Beatrice, three-quarters length, walks in a street in Florence, rose bushes and jasmine growing on either side. In one hand she holds her missal and with the other gathers up her dress. In the background Love, seated on a well, shelters Dante beneath his wings.” ( Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , vol. 1, 155 (no. 260).)
Jane Burden Morris Mrs. Morris sat for the head of Beatrice <artist/> <location/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>The picture should be compared and contrasted with the earlier <xref doc="a.s116.raw"> <title level="wrk"> <hi rend="i">Salutation of Beatrice</hi> picture, where DGR does not compose the scene in the distorted way that he does here. Beatrice is in this case radically foregrounded, dominating the picture and throwing both Love and Dante into recession. DGR forcefully relocates this Beatrice in reference to a current viewer of the painting (or, when we reflect on Jane Morris as the model, in reference to DGR himself).

The title of this picture can be misleading since the passage in the <hi rend="i">Vita Nuova</hi> which it references is the sonnet “Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare” (which DGR rendered in his translation as “My lady looks so gentle and so pure” ). Conventionally, however, the designation “The Salutation of Beatrice” refers to a very different passage in Dante's autobiography,—near the opening, when Dante first meets Beatrice in Florence dressed in white and flanked by two other ladies. DGR rendered this event in a much earlier picture—the left panel of the diptych called <hi rend="i">The Salutation of Beatrice</hi> .

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

One of DGR's last pictures, this painting was found after his death in his studio on an easel, framed. It has sometimes been described as unfinished, but the painting is clearly all but finished, with perhaps some of the architectural background not quite completed. That background, a compound of Siennese and Florentine details, is based on photographs sent to DGR by his friend Fairfax Murray.

DGR sent F. G. Stephens a prose description—not quite an ekphrasis—of the picture that Stephens could use in his art reviewing for the <hi rend="i">Athenaeum</hi> .

Reception

Iconographic

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Marillier, <hi rend="i">DGR: An Illustrated Memorial</hi> , 200 Rogers, “ <hi rend="i">The Salutation of Beatrice</hi>: by Dante Gabriel Rossetti” , in The Connoisseur 153 (1963), 180-181. Sharp, <hi rend="i">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</hi> , 264-265 Stephens, <hi rend="i">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</hi> , 50. Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , vol. 1, 154-156.

Toledo Museum of Art oil (1880-81) The Salutation of Beatrice (prose description) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1880 0 Dante Gabriele Rossetti con 107 Illustrazioni Elena Rossetti Angeli 1906 0 Dante Gabriele Rossetti con 107 Illustrazioni Elena Rossetti Angeli 1906 0 Drawings of D. G. Rossetti Wood, T. Martin 1907 0 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, An Illustrated Memorial of His Art and Life H. C. Marillier 1899 0 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, An Illustrated Memorial of His Art and Life H. C. Marillier 1899 0 The Salutation of Beatrice DGR 1880–81 oil 3 The Salutation of Beatrice (finished study) DGR 1876 (circa) pastel 3 The Salutation of Beatrice (drawing) DGR 1881 (circa) coloured chalks 1 The Salutation of Beatrice (study) DGR 1880–81 pencil over faint red chalk on buff paper 1 Jane Morris as Beatrice The Salutation of Beatrice Lady in a Blue Dress DGR 1872 (circa) 1872 watercolour 1 The Salutation of Beatrice DGR 1881 unknown 1 The Salutation of Beatrice (finished study) [print] DGR 1855-1913 (circa) Charcoal grey and beige print, mounted on beige board 1