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Marillier, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial, 200
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WMR, DGR Designer and Writer, 36
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The Pre–Raphaelites [Tate 1984], 252.
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Sharp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 264-265
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Stephens, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 50.
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Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné,
vol. 1, 70 (no. 116).
This collection contains 31 texts and images, including:
National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa) oil
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
“Two panels painted in a week for a cabinet at the Red House, Bexley Heath, the home of William Morris and his wife” (see Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 70). Only the panel on the left depicts the famous “Salutation of Beatrice” from the opening of Dante's Vita Nuova when Dante first meets Beatrice in Florence dressed in white and flanked by two other ladies. The other panel represents the meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Eden, recorded by Dante in the Purgatorio (Canto XXX).
Production History
“An unfinished centre panel, Dantis Amor (of the same dimensions as the left and right panels), representing the figure of Love, separated the left panel depicting The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Florence from the panel on the right, The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise. When the Red House was abandoned in 1865 the panels were removed from the cabinet, the left and right ones being framed together with a partition in the middle, on to which Rossetti painted a second version of Dantis Amor in a narrow oblong (the width of the partition)” (see Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 70).
A later sketch, made around 1869, depicts the scene of Dante meeting with Beatrice in Florence. Whether this was a brief study made toward a second version of the same scene is not known.