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Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Late 1850s
Source: S. M. Ellis, facing p.110
This has traditionally been seen as a portrait of George Meredith. But later scholarship has convincingly contested this claim. [Commentary continues below].
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This is what Ellis says, in his early biography of Meredith:
It was owing to his connection with Once a Week, and the artists he thereby came in contact with, that Meredith formed his friendship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The latter evidently appreciated his society, for in a letter to Alexander Gilchrist, the art critic, in November, 1861, Rossetti said: "Two or three are coming here on Friday evening at eight or so George Meredith I hope for one. Can you look in? I hope so nothing but oysters and the seediest of clothes." A memorable picture celebrates this new companionship, for Rossetti when painting Mary Magdalene at the Gate of Simon the Pharisee studied the head of Christ from Meredith's face; and this Rossetti portrait is one of the earliest presentments of the poet-novelist in manhood. [109-10]
The same head appears from inside the house at the very top right-hand corner of the composition, in the drawing, Mary at the Door of Simon, dated 1858.
Ellis's idea seems to fit well with much of what we know of Meredith. The sitter here looks very soulful, and indeed, Meredith was going through many trials and tribulations in his personal life. He was bitterly estranged from his first wife, Mary Ellen, who became ill and died in October 1861. The portrait looks very much like him, too.
However, Ellis must have been mistaken. In her authoritative Catalogue Raisonné, Virginia Surtees writes, "George Meredith was not the sitter, as is sometimes incorrectly assumed. An unpublished letter from George Meredith to Sir Sydney Cockerell (lately in his collection) records that Philip Webb saw Burne-Jones sitting for the head of Christ" (II: 63, n. 4). And indeed, a circular watercolour dated 1858, and a pencil portrait of 1859, both resembling this portrait, can be seen in the Rossetti online archive, and in each case the model is said to be Burne-Jones. The former is more like the portrait shown here, with a sharper profile and somewhat tousled hair; the latter, that is, the pencil portrait, depicts a sitter with straight hair, and has Rossetti's writing on it (see "Mary Magdalene at the door of Simon...," 1859). The latter does look more like Burne-Jones. What clinches the matter for Surtees is the fact that, as Ellis says, Meredith only came ino contact with Rossetti and his circle through their connection with Once a Week, which was first published in 1859 — after the watercolour of 1858.
Note that Meredith is still thought to have sat for the face of Christ in Rossetti's stained glass panel for The Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, this figure has a mane of red hair in no way similar to Burne-Jones's, but very like that seen in Henry Wallis's The Death of Chatterton, for which Meredith was certainly the model.
Ellis, S. M. George Meredith: His life and Friends in Relation to his Work. London: Grant Richards, 1920. Internet Archive. Contributed by Robarts Library, University of Toronto. Web. 12 December 2015.
"Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee (Head of Christ)." 1858 version. Web. 11 February 2022. Rossetti Archive. Web. 11 February 2022.
"Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee (Head of Christ)." 1859 version. Rossetti Archive. Web. 11 February 2022.
Surtees, Virginia. The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882). A Catalogue Raisonné. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Created 12 December 2015
Last modified 11 February 2022