COVE

A variant of this description was originally published at The Rossetti Archive at this location. 

Executed in late 1857 and exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1858, this "A Christmas Carol" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (watercolour) was bought in mid-1859 by James Leathart for 80 guineas. DGR told Leathart it was one of the best watercolours he had ever done and advised him that "to be seen favorably [it] ought to be hung with the light from the left i.e. of the spectator—that being the light in which they were painted" (see Fredeman 59.28; 59.30). Elizabeth Siddal was the model for the principal female figure. Virginia Surtees writes of the subject of the painting:

A young woman in red, with the face of Elizabeth Siddal, having her hair combed out by two attendants, is seated in the centre facing to front, playing a clavichord decorated on two panels with scenes of the Annunciation and Nativity; and hung with sprigs of green foliage; holly trees in red barrels stand to the left and right against a wall of bright blue tiles; a black and gold tapestry hangs behind the central figure and falls to form a carpet beneath her feet. (1.55)