Monna Vanna

1862–1866

Designing his sister Christina’s books

With his sister, the poet Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel designed and illustrated the first edition of “Goblin Market” (1862) and “The Prince’s Progress” (1866); his key bindings were designed between 1861 and 1871.

1862–1882

A Tudor house at 16 Cheyne Walk

After his wife’s death Rossetti leased a Tudor house at 16 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, where he lived for twenty years surrounded by extravagant furnishings and a parade of exotic birds and animals.

1863–1865

Fanny Cornforth: “housekeeper” and model

Rossetti kept Fanny Cornforth — described by William Allingham as his “housekeeper” — in her own establishment nearby in Chelsea and between 1863 and 1865 painted many voluptuous images of her.

1864–1867

The first commissions from the patron Leyland

In 1864–1867 Rossetti began to receive his first commissions from the patron and collector Frederick Richards Leyland, who collected Renaissance art and Pre-Raphaelite painting.

1865

Alexa Wilding: a meeting on the Strand

In 1865 Rossetti spotted the auburn-haired Alexa Wilding, a dressmaker and would-be actress, one evening on the Strand: she agreed to sit for him the next day but failed to arrive, and weeks later he saw her again, jumped from his cab and persuaded her to go straight to his studio. He paid her a weekly fee to sit for him exclusively, and she sat for more of his finished works than any other model.

1865

Photographs of Jane Morris at Rossetti’s house

In July 1865 a series of photographs of Jane Morris was taken at Rossetti’s house in Chelsea; the photographer is unknown, but each photograph bears the stamp of Rossetti’s artistic inspiration, as he posed the sitter himself.