Study for "Venus Verticordia"

11 February 1862

Death of Elizabeth Siddal and his manuscripts in her grave

On 11 February 1862, two years after the wedding, Elizabeth Siddal died of an overdose of laudanum, the alcoholic tincture of opium; Rossetti sank ever deeper into depression and, when she was buried at Highgate Cemetery, interred the bulk of his unpublished poems with her, though he later had them dug up.

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.