Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Painter And Poet

Jan Marsh

Born in London in 1828, of British and Italian parentage, DGR became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown and later formed the PRB to effect a revolution in English painting and poetry. His work in both forms was detailed, symbolic, mystical, and sometimes erotic. He was involved with two of the PRB beauties, first Lizzie Siddal who died of a laudanum overdose, then Jane Morris. Notoriously, DGR buried his poetry manuscripts with Siddal, but later exhumed them. Latterly involved with William Morris's decorative arts firm, DRG died - a near recluse - in 1882, a Romantic Victorian revolutionary.