Dantis Amor. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882). Oil and gold and silver leaf on mahogany. 29 1/2 x 32 inches (74.9 x 81.3 cm). Collection of Tate Britain, reference no. NO3532. Image released under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported) licence. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This was painted on mahogany because it was originally on one of the cupboard doors of a large settle, one of the typical pieces of decorated furniture that William Morris encouraged his friends to paint for him (another such settle can be seen here). In this case, the theme is Dante's Beatrice, and in this, the central panel, the subject is her death. In contrast to Rossetti's better-known Dante's Dream on the Day of the Death of Beatrice, it is treated symbolically, as a translation into heaven: an angel takes centre stage, holding a sundial; the face of Beatrice, for which Lizzie Siddal posed, is depicted in the crescent moon amid a starry sky, lower right.
The face of Jesus looks down on her, crowned as a king, from the sun with its great curving rays, in the upper left corner. According to the Tate's summary, the angel's sundial is
as yet unfinished, but ... in the preparatory drawing (Birmingham City Art Gallery), indicates the number nine, the hour of Beatrice's death. In the drawing Rossetti also inscribed along the line of the diagonal the concluding words of Dante's Divine Comedy: 'L'AMOR QUE MVOVE IL SOLE E L'ALTRE STELLE' [the love which moves the sun and the other stars] (Paradiso xxxiii, l.145). The composition is thus intended to represent not only the death of Beatrice and her transition from earth to heaven, but the wider notion that love is the generating force of the universe.
The difference in style between the figures and their background has been taken to suggest some collaboration here, which would not have been at all uncommon — although the "Scholarly Commentary" in the Rossetti Archive simply ascribes this to a studio assistant. Interestingly, the commentary also says: "Reproductions hardly convey the subtle uses of color in this remarkable picture." Perhaps this is why Dennis T. Lanigan, in his review of The Rossettis in Delaware Art Museum Wilmington, was particularly impressed by it. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
" Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Dantis Amor. 1860." Tate. Web. 27 November 2023.
"Scholarly Commentary." Dantis Amor: Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1860. Rossetti Archive. Web. 27 November 2023.
Cfreated 27 November 2023