| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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since the time of the great Umbrian painter, Raphael. Fidelity to nature was one of their main tenets, pursued with supreme skill for a time by Millais and heroically practiced throughout his career by Hunt. According to Marsh, Rossetti himself pursued nature for a time and contributed his share of paintings in this manner until the 1860s, when he developed his own style of paintings of idealized women. Rossetti exhibited his first work, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, at the Free Exhibition, Hyde Park Corner, in 1849, and also that year visited France and Belgium with Hunt (Marsh, Dante Gabriel Rossetti 55–56). The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had a brief life: by the beginning of 1853 it ceased to exist. Its literary organ The Germ, renamed Art and Poetry for its last two numbers, was even more ephemeral, seeing print only from January 1 to the end of April 1850 (Angeli xv). In 1850 the Brotherhood’s works exhibited at the Royal Academy received harsh press notices. Rossetti also that year exhibited Ecce Ancilla Domini at the National Institution, Portland Place, but thereafter ceased to exhibit in the major London exhibitions. Finding the criticism too difficult to endure, he turned his attention to his writing.
In late 1849 or early 1850, Rossetti met Elizabeth “Lizzie” Siddal. She was the daughter of a Sheffield cutler who, although in modest circumstances, claimed an ancient lineage (Angeli xv). She had become acquainted with Rossetti’s friend Walter Deverell and his family early in 1850 and posed for him as Viola in his painting Twelfth Night. Soon she also sat for Hunt. Gabriel was twenty-two when they met and, according to his niece, had never been in love before. Upon meeting Lizzie, he was struck with the feeling that they were destined for each other. Within a short period of time, she was modeling exclusively for him. In 1852 Rossetti moved to Chatham Place, Blackfriars. Meanwhile, Lizzie left her job at a millenary shop, moved into her own accommodations, and began spending her days with Rossetti.
In 1854 Coventry Patmore introduced the critic and art patron John Ruskin to Rossetti and Lizzie, initiating a relationship that continued until 1864. It was Ruskin who introduced Rossetti’s work to other patrons (Doughty 162). At the same time, Rossetti began teaching art one night