Woman in Yellow, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

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Woman in Yellow

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

1863

Watercolour on paper

Frame: 585 x 494 x 50 mm; support: 406 x 305

Collection: Tate

Bequeathed by Beresford Rimington Heaton, 1940

Reference: N05233

The model for this watercolour was Annie Miller, with whom Rossetti had had an affair before her engagement to William Holman Hunt had ended (see Amor 141-42). [Commentary continues below; mouse over the text for links.]

Photograph and text by Jacqueline Benerjee. The photograph was taken at the "Pre-Raphaelite Sisters" exhibition by kind permission of the National Portrait Gallery (see bibliography). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Naturally, after Holman Hunt withdrew, Annie turned to other artists for modelling work, including Rossetti again. Here he painted her rather poetically not as a character in fiction, myth or legend, or even in a "slice of life" drama (as Holman Hunt had painted her in The Awakening Conscience), but simply as a vision of beauty in soft golden tones — or, as the gallery label for the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition of "Pre-Raphaelite Sisters" put it, "swathed in yellow in the manner of a Renaissance portrait to emphasise her 'bodily beauty,' and also 'the beauty of colour.'"

In the end, however, Rossetti did endow her beauty with legendary significance: the gallery label informs us that "A later oil version was named after the woman most famous for the enchanting power of her appearance, Helen of Troy." The Helen of Troy painting has Annie's features and hair, but is much richer in colour. She still seems lost in thought but faces forward, and toys with a pendant showing the emblem of a flaming torch. Behind her is a hazy, fiery townscape, suggesting the burning of Troy. Annie's softly seductive beauty has become dangerous here.

Related Materials

Bibliography

Amore, Anne Clark. William Holman Hunt: The True Pre-Raphaelite. London: Constable, 1989.

"Pre-Raphaelite Sisters" at the National Portrait Gallery, London, 17 October 2019 – 26 January 2020. [Review.]

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Created 1 November 2019