Jane Morris

Dante Gabriel Rossetti|Jane Morris

1873 · Pen and brown ink · Drawings and Prints

In the 1870s Rossetti and Jane Morris, the wife of his friend William Morris, became involved emotionally and are believed to have had an extended affair. In 1871 the two families jointly rented Kelmscott Manor, near Oxford, and Rossetti lived there between 1872 and 1874. In the summers, while Morris travelled to Iceland to study Norse sagas, Jane and their two daughters took up residence at Kelmscott. Rossetti's studies of Jane made during this period have a relaxed domenstic quality, showing her seated and reading or dreaming. Later, the artist used them as a foundation for major symbolic compositions such as "Mariana" (see MMA 47.66).

Artist

Dante Gabriel Rossetti|Jane Morris

Date

1873

Medium

Pen and brown ink

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler, 2020