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Arthur's Tomb

Alternately titled: The last meeting of Launcelot and Guenevere

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1855

Physical Description

Medium: watercolour

Dimensions: 9 x 14 1/2 inches

Signature: DGR

Date on Image: 1854

Note: The title, monogram, and a date are inscribed at lower right: “Arthur's Tomb 1855.”

Production Description

Production Date: 1855

Exhibition History: New Gallery 1897 (no.31); Birmingham 1947 (no.98); R.A., 1973 (no.132); Tate 1984 (no.213)

Provenance

Current Location: British Museum, London

Archival History: John Ruskin; George Butterworth; DGR 1878; William Graham; Christie's sale April 3, 1886 (lot 102); S. Pepys Cockerell; E. W. Huddart; Christie's sale June 4, 1982 (lot 24); British Museum, London

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

Surtees suggests that the date (1854) was possibly added later as it contradicts information included in a letter from Rossetti to Ford Madox Brown, dated 22 October, 1855, in which the former claims that the drawing of Launcelot is near completion. Surtees also notes that this is Rossetti's “first treatment of an Arthurian subject, though this particular episode does not occur in Malory's Morte d'Arthur...This water–colour may have suggested William Morris's poem King Arthur's Tomb in Defence of Guinevere.”

Bibliography

Angeli, DGR con 107 illustrazioni , 91.
Fontana, “Representations of the Kiss,” 80-88.
Marillier, An Illustrated Memorial , [60b recto]-61, 83.
Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , vol. 1, 34-35 (no. 73).
Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , vol. 2, no. 80.

Reproductions

Angeli, DGR con 107 illustrazioni , 91.
Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné , vol. 2, plate 80.
Marillier, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial , 60b recto.
Radford, Dante Gabriel Rossetti , 7.
Delaware Art Museum print.
Delaware Art Museum print.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1

File Name: s73.rap.xml