Rossetti

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded

In September 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The brotherhood reacts, in part, against the use of bitumen, a transparent brown used for depicting exaggerated shadows, aiming instead to reproduce the sharp, brilliant colors found in fifteenth-century art. Image: Portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: albumen print. This photograph, from 7 October 1863, was reproduced as the frontispiece of: Rossetti, William Michael, Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer. London: Cassell and Company, 1898.

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“The Blessed Damozel”

In February 1850, publication of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “The Blessed Damozel.” Image: The Blessed Damozel, oil on canvas, Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University. Completed c. 1871-78. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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Pre-Raphaelite Art Exhibit

Pre-Raphaelite Art Exhibit, Russell Square, London, from 25 May to 25 June 1857. This was the first exhibition devoted solely to the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. Image: Portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: albumen print. This photograph, from 7 October 1863, was reproduced as the frontispiece of: Rossetti, William Michael, Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer. London: Cassell and Company, 1898. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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Rossetti, Poems

In April 1870, Dante Gabriel Rossetti published his first volume of original poetry, marking the start of several decades of renewed lyric experimentation by younger poets like Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris, Christina Rossetti, George Meredith, and Gerard Manly Hopkins. Image: Portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: albumen print, 7 October 1863. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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Dark Blue journal run

From March 1871 to March 1873, the journal, Dark Blue, was published monthly in Great Britain. Dark Blue (1871–73) was a monthly magazine, edited by Oxford undergraduate John Christian Freund, which folded two years after a brilliant debut. During its brief run, it brought together a stunning list of literary and artistic contributors, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A. C. Swinburne, William Morris, Andrew Lang, Mathilde Blind, Sheridan Le Fanu, Simeon Solomon, and Ford Madox Brown, who produced aesthetically and sexually daring poetry, art, and criticism.

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Anna Maria Jones, “On the Publication of Dark Blue, 1871-73″

Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori Rossetti's 80th Birthday

On April 27 1880 Frances Rossetti turned eighty. In honour of her birthday, Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) gave her a copy of David Main's Treasury of English Sonnets (1880). They personalized their gift by contributing a hand-written sonnet each. DGR designed his illuminated “A Sonnet is a moment’s monument” to fit the dimensions of the book and memorialized the moment of the gift in the lower left corner of the manuscript: "DG Rossetti pro Matre facit Apr: 27: 1880" (DG Rossetti made this for his Mother April 27 1880). While DGR’s sonnet was laid in to the front of the Treasury of English Sonnets, CGR placed her hand-written offering, “Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome…” at the back of the book. In this format, the Rossetti siblings' pair of sonnets effectively became the "Alpha and Omega" of this national collection, commenting on the long tradition of sonnets circulating in manuscript and print for private/public expressions of love, ambition, rivalry, and loss.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study published

DGR’s illuminated sonnet was first published as the frontispiece to William Sharp’s biography of the poet-painter, brought out by Macmillan in the year of the poet’s death. In a letter to her brother William dated 26 July 1882, Christina Rossetti reported that their mother, Frances, had loaned “her cherished Main’s Sonnet book, giving him leave to have the ‘Sonnet’ drawing engraved for his book” (Letters of Christina Rossetti vol 3, p. 52).