''Veronica Veronese'' is an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

painted in 1872 with

Alexa Wilding Alexa Wilding (born Alice Wilding, c. 1847 – 25 April 1884) was one of the favourite models of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, featuring in some of his finest paintings of the later 1860s and 1870s. She sat for more of h ...

as the model. The painting was conceived as a companion to ''

Lady Lilith ''Lady Lilith'' is an oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti first painted in 1866–1868 using his mistress Fanny Cornforth as the model, then altered in 1872–73 to show the face of Alexa Wilding. The subject is Lilith, who was, according to ...

.'' Rossetti sold the painting to one of his best clients, shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland.''Waking Dreams'', p.194. In 1923 it was acquired by the estate of Samuel Bancroft which donated it in 1935 to the

Delaware Art Museum The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 objects. The museum was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artis ...

Painting

Like much of Rossetti's work of the 1860s and 1870s, ''Veronica Veronese'' was inspired by Venetian painting. It is believed to represent "the artistic soul in the act of creation". This theme is expounded by the fictitious quote inscribed on the frame of the painting. Though the quote is attributed on the frame to "The Letters of Girolamo Ridolfi," critics believe that Algernon Charles Swinburne or Rossetti actually wrote it. The symbolism in the painting includes the uncaged bird, which may represent "the marriage of the voices of nature and the soul" and overt flower symbolism. The

camomile Chamomile (American English) or camomile (British English; see spelling differences) ( or ) is the common name for several plants of the family Asteraceae. Two of the species, ''Matricaria recutita'' and ''Anthemis nobilis'', are commonly us ...

in the bird cage may represent "energy in adversity", the primroses youth, and the

daffodil ''Narcissus'' is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae. Various common names including daffodil,The word "daffodil" is also applied to related genera such as ''Sternbergia'', ''Ism ...

s reflection.

Jane Morris Jane Morris (née Burden; 19 October 1839 – 26 January 1914) was an English embroiderer in the Arts and Crafts movement and artists' model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. She was a model and muse to her husband Willi ...

lent the green dress in the picture. The violin was part of Rossetti's collection of musical instruments, and the fan also appeared in '' Monna Vanna''. The few bars of musical composition on the manuscript may have been borrowed from George Boyce.

Provenance and exhibitions

File:FRLeylandsdrawingroom1892.jpg, Six Rossetti paintings as hung in Leyland's drawing room, 1892. ''Lady Lilith'' hangs at the far right. (Click on any painting for its article.) poly 80 200 25 200 25 280 80 280

Monna Rosa ''Monna Rosa'' is the title of two oil paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, both portraits of Frances Leyland, the wife of shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland, a regular patron of Rossetti. The earlier and smaller painting was completed ...

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The Blessed Damozel "The Blessed Damozel" is perhaps the best known poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as well as the title of his painting (and its replica) illustrating the subject. The poem was first published in 1850 in the Pre-Raphaelite journal '' The Germ''. Ro ...

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desc none Leyland bought the painting from Rossetti in 1872 for £840 and it was sold at Leyland's estate sale, held at Christie's on 28 May 1892. The painting hung in Leyland's drawing room with five other Rossetti paintings that Leyland called "stunners."''Waking Dreams'', p. 26 (figure 5). After Leyland's estate sale, the painting changed hands three times until it was bought by Charles Fairfax Murray, another Pre-Raphaelite artist. Murray's son, John Edward Murray, sold it to the estate of Samuel Bancroft in 1923. Bancroft and his estate accumulated one of the largest collections of

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

art outside of the United Kingdom and donated the collection in 1935 to the

. The painting was exhibited in London in 1883, and in Washington, D.C. (1977), Richmond, Virginia (1982), London (1997), and

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

and Williamstown (2000).

Painting

Provenance and exhibitions

See also

References

Sources

Further reading