Ballad of Fair Annie Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1854-1856
<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>DGR wrote to Madox Brown on 23 May 1854 that he and Elizabeth Siddal “are going to illustrate the old Scottish ballads which Allingham is editing for Routledge. She has just done her first block (from ‘Clerk Saunders’) and it is lovely. Her power of designing even increases greatly, and her fecundity of invention & facility are quite wonderful, much greater than mine” (<bibl> <author>Fredeman</author>, <xref doc="a." link="dead"> <title level="bk"> <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 54.49 ). This drawing, which was to have been one of those illustrations, treats the ancient ballad of “Lord Thomas and Fair Annie” . The ballad tells the story of a girl of unknown parentage (Annie) who becomes the mistress of Lord Thomas and bears him seven children. When he goes abroad to seek a wife, he brings back Annie's sister Eleanor. When the sisters discover their relationship, Eleanor abandons the marriage plans, Annie and Lord Thomas are wed, and Eleanor returns home. DGR would have known the ballad from Scott's <hi rend="i">Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border</hi> , III. 311-319 .

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Grieve observes that the subject “was an old favorite with Rossetti and there are rough sketches illustrating it from as early as c. 1846-7. . . .In a small sheet of these studies we see Rossetti arriving at the inclident he wished to show—the meeting of the sisters ‘below stairs’, the mistress with her child, the rich sister dressed for the wedding” ( Grieve, <hi rend="i">Art of DGR: Watercolors and Drawings</hi> , 65-66 ). The finished drawing is one of DGR's finest.

Reception

Iconographic

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Allingham published <hi rend="i">The Ballad Book</hi> in 1864 but it contained none of the illustrations DGR had projected in his 1854 letter to Brown. It did print a version of the ballad under the title “Fair Annie” ( <hi rend="i">The Ballad Book</hi> , 83-88 ).

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Grieve, <hi rend="i">Art of DGR: Watercolors and Drawings</hi> , 65-67 Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , vol. 1, 32-33 (no. 68). <hi rend="i">The Pre–Raphaelites , Tate 1984</hi> , 275. Treuherz, Prettijohn, Becker, <hi rend="i">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</hi> , 173-174.

Print 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 Ballad of Fair Annie DGR 1855 (circa) pen and sepia and slight India ink over a sketch in black 4 Ballad of Fair Annie DGR 1854 (circa) pen and brown ink, and ink wash 1 Ballad of Fair Annie DGR 1854 (circa) pencil 1 Ballad of Fair Annie DGR 1854 (circa) pen, sepia and wash 1 Ballad of Fair Annie (print) DGR 1857-1890 (circa) Charcoal brown and yellow cream photoprint, mounted on beige (aged) board 1