COVE

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

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

Henry Currie Marillier describes this as “a scene suggested by Thomas Malory. In a lighted chapel a lady is helping to arm a kneeling knight in red, her long white head-dress, as she stoops to kiss him, falling like a mantle down her blue dress. She is holding his long two-handed sword. Upon the pointed shield of the knight is a figure of a maiden in distress (Andromeda, or the Princess in the dragon story). Beyond the chapel is a tented field, and knights going forth to joust” (80-81).

The scene is perhaps more ambiguous than Marillier's account suggests. The knight's embrace is fulsome, even erotic (in contrast with the kiss exchanged in either The Rose Garden or Love's Greeting). Indeed, the fact that the kiss is given in a chapel only increases the ambiguity of the scene, particularly if one regards the general context as Malorian (rather than Froissartian).

Production History

Virginia Surtees quotes from Ford Madox Brown's diary for January 1856, which describes what is perhaps the first version of this picture: “A lady and a knight praying before an altar. He offers his sword and she fixes her sleeve on his basnet. Overhead, in the disance, is seen ‘a black tower’, and beside is a black knight, mounted, waiting with his lance in rest for the combat. . .an admirable picture of the world of our fathers with its chief characteristics—religion, art, chivalry, and love” (56). This would have been the picture that Morris purchased from Rossetti in 1858. Later, in 1864, five of the pictures that Morris had purchased earlier were back in Rossetti's studio for resale. Rossetti came to an agreement about purchasing these five plus one other. While he had these pictures again, he reworked several of them, and in particular this picture.

It is not certain that Brown's diary is describing the early version of this picture or perhaps an early version of Before the Battle, a work clearly related to this one.

Literary

Most commentators assert that the picture is inspired by Thomas Malory (though it does not illustrate any particular text or event). Dante Gabriel Rossetti was equally enamoured of Froissart, however, and the scene appears to be generally chivalric, as Brown's diary observes.

General Description

Date: 1857–1864.

Physical Description

Medium: Watercolour.

Dimensions: 15 1/2 x 16 ¼.

Signature: Monogram.

Date on Image: 1857–64.

Note: Monogram and date are inscribed at lower right.

Production Description

Production Date: 1857–64.

Exhibition History: B.F.A.C., 1883 (no.26); R.A., 1973 (no.144).

Patron: William Morris.

Date Commissioned: 1857–1864.

Repainting: 1864.

Provenance

Current Location: Tate Gallery.

Catalog Number: 3060.

Archival History: William Morris; Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1860 (circa); George Rae; Tate Gallery 1916.

Works Cited 

Marillier, Henry C. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An Illustrated Memorial of his Life and Art. George Bell and Sons, 1899.

Surtees, Virginia. The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882): A Catalogue Raisonné. Vol 1. Clarendon Press, 1971.

MLA Citation

McGann, Jerome. “Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Chapel before the Lists (1857-1864).” Rossetti Archive Galleries. The COVE: The Central Online Victorian Educator, covecollective.org. [Here, add your last date of access to The COVE].