Dante Gabriel Rossetti

British, 1828 - 1882

Beata Beatrix

Date: 1864-70

Painted as a memorial to Rossetti's wife, Elizabeth Siddal, who died in 1862. Rossetti had in fact begun the picture many years before, but took it up again in 1864 and completed it by 1870. It is one of his most intensely visionary, Symbolist pictures, and marks a new direction in his art. The painting represents the death of Beatrice in Dante's 'Vita Nuova'. Beatrice sits in a death-like trance, while a bird, the messenger of Death, drops a poppy into her hands. In the background the figures of Love and Dante gaze at each other, with the Ponte Vecchio and the Duomo of Florence silhouetted behind them.

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