Portrait of Margaret Polidori (1794-1867)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
1853
Graphite on paper
121 x 114 mm (4 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches)
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Crowther-Oblak Collection of Victorian Art and the National Gallery of Slovenia and the Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway (2) and link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Crowther-Oblak Collection of Victorian Art and the National Gallery of Slovenia and the Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway (2) and link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.
Commentary by Paul Crowther
Margaret was Rossetti’s maternal aunt and had worked as a governess in Leicestershire; Gaetano was his maternal grandfather (and, of course, the father of Margaret Polidori). He was a poet and a writer. There are three surviving letters (concerning domestic matters) from Rossetti to Aunt Margaret, and one to Gaetano.1 In 1853, Rossetti did a number of drawings of his family including the present sketch of Margaret.2 Because his artistic style is so closely associated with medievalism, and languorous, exotic-looking women, one of its more prosaic but important aspects is easily overlooked. For, however exotic Rossetti’s costumery, colours, and floral settings may be, they are arranged around the model’s natural expression or gesture (or both). The dialectical effect of this is that, on the one hand, the expression or gesture qua natural, keeps the exotic visual aspects tied to the real world; but, on the other hand, the extravagance of the exotica de-naturalizes the expression or gesture somewhat, giving the whole image a somewhat dreamlike character. In other words, no matter how radical Rossetti’s powers of invention, they rely on natural observation to make them distinctive. In this drawing of Margaret Polidori, the acuteness of Rossetti’s sympathetic natural observation stands out clearly, without complication.
Notes
1. See Praeraphaelite Diaries and Letters. The letters to Margaret are on pp. 6–7, pp. 21–22, and p. 25; the letter to Gaetano is on pp. 8–10.
2. There is also an earlier Rossetti pen and ink drawing of her from 1850. It is somewhat smaller than the present work, and less tonally modelled. Margaret is presented without spectacles there. The drawing is reproduced in Fredeman (plate 48 c, p. 7). At the time Fredeman was writing, this pen and ink picture was the only image of Margaret by Rossetti known to exist.
Related material
Bibliography
Crowther, Paul. Awakening Beauty: The Crowther-Oblak Collection of Victorian Art. Exhibition catalogue. Ljubljana: National Gallery of Slovenia; Galway: Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, 2014. No. 111.
Fredeman, William. The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Studies, Special Issue: A Rossetti Cabinet: A Portfolio of Drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 2 (2) (1991).
Rossetti, William Michael, ed. Praeraphaelite Diaries and Letters. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1900.
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Created 9 January 2015