La Belle Dame Sans Merci Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1855
Elizabeth Siddal <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>See the commentary for the <xref doc="a.s32.raw">earliest</xref> of DGR's illustrations for Keats's famous ballad. Like others, Surtees quite reasonably questions whether the watercolour illustrates Keats's poem at all. She observes that “Fairfax Murray suggested that the figures represent Laertes [sic] leading Opelia as they resemble fairly closely the two principal figures in the <xref doc="a.s169.raw"> <title level="pic"> <hi rend="i">First Madness of Ophelia</hi> ” ( Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , vol. 1, 39 ).

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

What may be a study for this watercolour dates from 1850. DGR wrote to George Boyce in early April 1857, asking to borrow the watercolour in order to make an oil version that “a friend has asked me to paint”. The oil was never executed so far as we know (see Fredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 57. 19 ). The unfinished drawing of the knight and the girl on a horse dates from 1855, which is the date signed on the watercolour.

Reception

Iconographic

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Benedetti, <hi rend="i">Dante Gabriel Rossetti.</hi> , 192. Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , vol. 1, 39-40 (no. 76).

Birmingham Museum drawing La Belle Dame Sans Merci DGR 1855 1855 watercolour 2 La Belle Dame Sans Merci DGR 1850 (circa) pen and ink over pencil on green paper 1 La Belle Dame Sans Merci DGR 1855 (circa) pen, pencil, and wash 1