The Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1857
<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 legend of St. George was a favorite with DGR and other artists of the period. Besides this splendid watercolour, which was DGR's first effort to deal with the subject, he made a series of stained glass designs for the Morris firm on “The Story of St. George and the Dragon” (see commentary for <xref doc="a.s145.raw"> <title level="pic"> <hi rend="i">The Story of St. George and the Dragon: the Skulls Brought to the King</hi> ). These were done in 1861-1862. Three other watercolours made in the 1860s are also related: the <hi rend="i">St. George and the Princess Sabra </hi> (1861-1862); the watercolour over an india ink drawing of the second panel in the series, and the 1864 watercolour titled close to this one, <hi rend="i">The Wedding of St. George</hi> .

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

DGR was working on the picture in the summer of 1857 and probably offered it for sale to Thomas Plint in December. When James Smetham saw the picture in 1860 he called it “one of the grandest things, like a golden dim dream. Love ‘credulous all gold,’ gold armour, a sense of secret enclosure in ‘palace chambers far apart’; but quaint chambers in quaint palaces where angels creep in through sliding panel dooors, and stand behind rows of flowers, drumming on golden bells, with wings crimson and green” ( Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , vol. 1, 55.).

Reception

Iconographic

Pictorial

“Perhps here, more than in any of the other watercolours of this period, Rossetti has indulged his love for decorative shapes and inter-related heraldic patterns” ( Grieve, <hi rend="i">The Pre–Raphaelites , Tate 1984</hi> , 281

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Marillier, <hi rend="i"/>DGR: An Illustrated Memorial , 81. Surtees, <hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> , vol. 1, 55 (no. 97). <hi rend="i">The Pre–Raphaelites , Tate 1984</hi> , 281

Tate Gallery watercolour Dante Gabriele Rossetti con 107 Illustrazioni Elena Rossetti Angeli 1906 0 The Studio, Volume 69 Charles Holme, editor 1916 0 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, An Illustrated Memorial of His Art and Life H. C. Marillier 1899 0 The Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra DGR 1857 1857 watercolour 5 The Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra DGR 1857 (circa) pencil 1 The Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra [print] DGR 1870-1913 (circa) photoprint (color) mounted on cream construction paper matte 1 The Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra (print) DGR 1912 (circa) mezzotint 1