I was going to post fabulous Pre-Raphaelite paintings as a suitable resting-place for the eyes and mind at this Christmas time.
Detail of Mona Vanna below
But as I looked at them and looked at them, the women of these paintings began to speak to me.
So I ferretted out what is known of them.
The answer is: of most not much because they are women and most from unexalted social milieux.
Of the two who married men of or allied to this movement, a little more.
Unless the marriage was a common law one when we are back to not much.
Of the lone Black boy, not even his name is known.
It is these women who are, of course, the fabulousness of these fabulous paintings.
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The ideas of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who were not a formal group and who dispersed after 5 years, nevertheless spawned a multi-generational, creative movement, overlapping other movements, in painting, sculpture and in the decorative arts.
Throughout the evolution of this movement, the Brotherhood and their successors were inspired and supported and sustained by women who were their wives, mistresses, and muses.
The contribution of women to the renown of the Pre-Raphaelite movement is little spoken of.
Of the 10 muses mentioned here (I exclude Christina Rossetti who also sat for her brother) all but one were born into working class British families.
The exception is Maria Zambaco, the daughter of a wealthy Anglo-Greek business man and a sculptor in her own right.
The 3 Pre-Raphaelite artists in this post are Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frederick Sandys and Edward Burne-Jones. Only Rossetti, whose work remains probably the most prized of all the Pre-Raphaelites, was a member of the original Brotherhood.
The Beloved (‘The Bride’), 1865-66, oil on canvas.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Tate, London loan to the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington in 2023
Lines from the Biblical Song of Solomon are inscribed on the medallion. The bride is readying to marry King Solomon.
The Delaware Art Museum noted the names of the models, where known:
Marie Ford was the model for the bride. Her personal history is not known beyond the belief that she was English and working class.
Ellen Smith, left. No information beyond that she was English and had been a household maid.
Unknown, back left. Possibly Ellen Smith also.
Fanny Eaton, back right. A woman born in Jamaica of a Jamaican mother and white English father. Formerly a laundress by profession.
Keomi Gray Bonnet, front right: a Romany woman who sat as a model for Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Frederick Sandys and was the mother of 3 of Sandys’ children.
A little Black boy. This boy sat for the artist in 1865. Nothing more is known than that he was in the charge of an adult staying at a London hotel. The artist had run into them at the hotel and had requested permission of the adult, called the boy’s ‘master’, to paint him.
This is the only Black person Rossetti painted in oil.
Critical analysis of the presence of the Black boy notes that he exists as a ‘pictorial tool employed to accentuate the colour values in the jewellery and robes of the women, and to highlight the beauty’ of the bride whose complexion the artist found ‘bright’ and ‘ irresistible’.
The Pre-Raphaelites took their subject matter – heavily freighted with symbols – from Celtic lore, Medieval history and myth; and from the Bible.
Ecce Ancilla Domini (The Annunication), 1849-50, oil on canvas
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Tate, London loan to the Delaware Art Museum in 2023
The artist’s brother William is the model for the archangel and his sister Christina for Mary.
Love’s Messenger, 1885, watercolour on paper mounted on wood
Marie Spitali Stillman, 1844-1927, British. Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
Marie Spitali Stillman was a first-generation Pre-Raphaelite whose work has largely been overlooked.
The Pre-Raphaelite artistic aim was to return to the style of painting of 15th century Italy: before the innovations of Raphael and Michelangelo. The work of these they judged manneristic and deadening.
Their chosen emphases were on colour, beauty, the stimulation of the senses; and on spirituality.
Two main sources of beauty in Pre-Raphaelite art were women and Nature.
Their rule was to draw these from life and not from imagination.
They found their model in the work of Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510, Florence, Italy).
A second-generation Pre-Raphaelite, Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, pays homage to Botticelli in one of her paintings:
Botticelli’s Studio: The First Visit of Simonetta Presented by Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici, 1922, oil on canvas.
Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, 1872-1945, British. Private loan to the Delaware Art Museum in 2023.
Simonetta Vespucci, accompanied by the de’Medici brothers, is visiting Botticelli behind whose head is his painting, the Madonna del Magnificat.
from the blog post, Eclectic Light Company, 11/07/2025:
https://wordpress.com/reader/feeds/33050143/posts/5860678367
‘…The artist stands at the left in front of an exquisite tondo he is working on. Bowing to him at the centre is Giuliano de’ Medici, who is accompanied by Simonetta Vespucci, wearing the green dress. Behind her is Lorenzo de’ Medici, also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, and behind him are Giovanna Tornabuoni and her attendants. The view through the window is of the Palazzo Vecchio in the centre of Florence.
Painted by the British artist Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, those figures weren’t based on models or imagination, but on contemporary sources….
‘But of all the figures shown in this painting, Simonetta Vespucci is the most fascinating. She was born Simonetta Cattaneo in 1453, and when she was only fifteen or sixteen, she married Marco Vespucci, cousin of Amerigo Vespucci, the first to demonstrate that the New World of the West Indies and Brazil wasn’t part of Asia.
Once married, she lived with her husband in Florence, where she was a great favourite at the court of the de’ Medicis. Giuliano de’ Medici entered a jousting tournament in 1475 bearing a banner with an image of Simonetta as Pallas Athene, painted by Botticelli. She had the reputation of being the most beautiful woman in the whole of northern Italy, but that beauty was fleeting as she died of tuberculosis in 1476, when she was only twenty-two.’
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Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, 1828-1862.
Artist and muse of her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Siddal met Rossetti in the late 1840’s when they both were studying art. She became his muse and then, fragile with illnesss, his wife in 1860.
She overdosed on laudanum early in 1862 after a stillbirth and while again pregnant.
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, c. 1854, graphite and watercolour on paper
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Delaware Art Museum
The Lady of Shallot, ink on paper, 1853.
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, 1828-1862, British. Loaned to the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington by the Maas Gallery in 2023.
The artist’s earliest work.
The Lady of Shallot is under a curse and cannot leave her castle. One day she sees and falls in love with Lancelot as he passes her window. Her mirror and loom break and she leaves to pursue him even though she knows that this will cost her her life.
Lady Affixing Pennant to Knight’s Spear, c. 1856, watercolour on paper.
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, 1828-1862, British. Tate, London on loan to the Delaware Art Museum in 2023
St. Catherine, 1857, oil on canvas
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Tate, London loan to the Delaware Art Museum in 2023
Elizabeth is the model for St. Catherine. The palm branch is a symbol of her martyrdom and the spiked wheel the instrument of her martyrdom.
The Tune of the Seven Towers, 1857, watercolour on paper
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882. Tate, London on loan to the Delaware Art Museum in 2023.
Elizabeth Siddal is her husband’s model for the seated lady.
Jane Morris, 1839-1914, British;
artisan and muse; wife of William Morris (1834-1896, English designer and co-founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement).
Jane Burden met Rossetti in 1857. He asked her to sit for him.
William Morris met and fell in love with her during these sittings.
William Morris and Jane Burden married in 1859 and by 1862 had two daughters.
It was an unhappy marriage.
She became a skilled embroiderer and she and her daughters worked for her husband’s design company.
Jane Morris came to know Rossetti well when he and her husband took out a joint tenancy on Kelmscott House in 1871.
Their intimate emotional entanglement is thought to have lasted until Dante Gabriel Rossetti died in 1882.
The Wedding of St. George and Princess Sabra, 1857, watercolour on paper
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Tate, London loan to the Delaware Art Museum in 2023
One of the artist’s first works to depict Jane Morris.
May (daughter of Jane and William) Morris, 1868, coloured chalks on paper
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Private collection loan to the Delaware Art Museum in 2023
Dantis Amor, oil on mahogany panel, 1860
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Tate, London loan to the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington in 2023
Not long after the marriage of Jane Burden and William Morris, Rossetti gave them a settle for a marriage present. This is one of the 3 paintings which decorated the settle.
Each panel illustrates a scene from ‘The New Life’ of Dante Alighieri. This scene is after Beatrice’s death. It represents Dante’s love for Beatrice as the marriage between the sun and the moon.
The heads in two corners are those of Rossetti’s siblings.
Water Willow, 1871, oil on canvas mounted onto wood panel.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. The Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
The willow branches of this melancholic portrait in front of the house they shared with Jane Morris’ husband, Kelmscott Manor, denote the sorrow of Jane Morris’ relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Prosperine, 1874, oil on canvas
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Tate, London loan to the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington in 2023
Hades has tempted Prosperine, whom he kidnapped and took to his underworld kingdom, to eat of a pomegranate. She thus forfeited both an immediate return to and a permanent stay at her home on earth.
Mnemosyne, 1881, oil on canvas
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. The Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
Fanny Cornforth, born Sarah Cox, 1835-1909: muse and mistress of, and housekeeper for Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Cornforth was a model who was ‘discovered’ in 1856 when Rossetti and others were in London celebrating the return of Florence Nightingale from the Crimean War.
She was the muse, mistress and housekeeper of Dante Gabriel Rossetti intermittently during periods when he was married or involved with Jane Morris.
Removed from his house by his family, her relationship with Rossetti lasted, nevertheless, until Rossetti’s death.
He recognized his debt to her and left her a number of his paintings to secure her future.
Bottles, 1848, oil on canvas.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Delaware Art Museum
This was painted when Rossetti was studying with Ford Maddox Brown.
Lady Lilith, 1867, watercolour and gouache
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, British 1828–1882 and Henry Treffry Dunn, British, 1838–1899. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
The model is Fanny Cornforth. In the much more famous oil painting below, the artist superimposed the face and head of Alexa Wilding over that of Fanny Cornforth.
Aurelia (Fazio’s Mistress), c. 1863-73, oil on mahogany panel
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Tate, London loan to Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington in 2023
Alexa (Alice) Wilding, 1847-1884;
muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Rossetti spotted Alexa Wilding walking in London in 1865. Their bond, which was not sexual, was professionally close and lasted many years.
She sat for more of his paintings than any other woman; and he superimposed her face on that of Fanny Cornforth’s more than once.
Very little is known of her personal history beyond that she was English and working class;
and that she died at 37 of illness.
Mona Vanna, 1866, oil on canvas
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Tate, London loan to Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington in 2023
Venus Verticordia, 1868, watercolour and gouache on paper
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Private collection on loan to Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington in 2023
A rare painting by this artist of a nude woman.
Lady Lilith, 1866-68, altered 1872-73, oil on canvas. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
First painted with the face of Fanny Cornforth, the artist later superimposed that of Alexa Wilding.
Veronica Veronese, 1872, oil on canvas
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882. The Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
La Ghirlandata (The Garland Lady),1873, oil on canvas.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Delaware Art Museum
La Bella Mano, 1875, oil on canvas.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, British. Photo from the website of the Delaware Art Museum.
Maria Zambaco, 1843-1914, Anglo-Greek;
sculptor; muse and mistress of Edward Burne-Jones.
Zambaco, a cousin of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Marie Spitali Stillman, trained as a sculptor and was well known for her art among art circles in London and in France.
After the end of her affair with Edward Burne-Jones, whom she met in 1866, he continued to portray her as a temptress or sorceress.
Study for the Head of Nimue in ‘The Beguiling of Merlin’, watercolour with gouache on paper mounted on wood.
Edward Burne-Jones, 1833-1898, British. Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
The Beguiling of Merlin, c. 1872-77, oil on canvas
Edward Burne-Jones, 1833-1898, British. Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Merseyside, UK. Photo from the net
Mary Emma Jones (Miss Clive), 1845-1920, British; actress; common law wife, muse; and mother of 10 children of Frederick Sandys raised under a different name from his.
Mary Emma Jones met Sandys when she modelled for his ‘The Magdalen’, painted in 1862.
He was devoted to her for the rest of his life.
Reflections, black and red chalk on textured paper, 1871.
Frederick Sandys, 1824-1904, British. Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington.
Mary Magdalene, oil on wood panel, 1858-60
Frederick Sandys, 1824-1904, British. Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
The model is unknown.
May Margaret, 1865-66, oil on canvas.
Frederick Sandys, 1824-1904, British. Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington.
Thought to be either Sandys’ common law wife, Mary or her sister, Millie.