Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his brother William
of green foliage. Holly trees in red barrels stand
Michael were pupils at King’s College School
behind the two figures combing out her hair. The
at the Strand from 1837. Their father,
painting was exhibited at the Liverpool
the Italian patriot Gabriele Rossetti,
Academy in 1858 and bought in 1859 by
taught Italian there. This watercolour,
James Leathart. Rossetti told Leathart
painted in late 1857, shows a young
it was one of the best watercolours he
woman with the face of Elizabeth Siddal,
had ever done and advised him that ‘to
Rossetti’s frequent model and later his wife. She
be seen favourably it ought to be hung with the
is playing a clavichord decorated with scenes of
light from the left ie of the spectator – that being
the Annunciation and Nativity and hung with sprigs
the light in which they were painted’.
The image: A Christmas Carol by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82) Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University