→ Collection Intro → Browse Collection

The Loving Cup

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1867
Model: Alexa Wilding (model for the original oil painting)
Model: Ellen Smith (model for the three replicas)

Bibliography

◦ Marillier, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial, 147.

◦ Sharp, DGR: A Record and a Study, 191-192.

◦ Stephens, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 70.

◦ Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 115-116.

◦ WMR, DGR Designer and Writer, 76.



This collection contains 17 texts and images, including:


National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, oil painting

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

The subject is the cup awarded to the winner of a courtly competition, and presented by a woman variously designated for the task, sometimes called “The Queen of Love and Beauty”. As is almost always the case when DGR took up a medieval subject in the 1860s and later, the treatment is frankly non-realistic.

Production History

The original oil picture, with Alexa Wilding as model, was executed for Leyland in 1867 and was believed lost during World War II, but is now known to be in the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. “Three water-colour replicas from a different model, Ellen Smith, followed [the original oil], probably in the same year [1867]” (see Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 115 ).

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: s201.raw.xml