Alexa Wilding holding an Apple
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London 1828 - Birchington 1882)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
1866 (monogrammed and dated)
Materials
Coloured chalks on two horizontally joined sheets of pale blue paper
Measurements
604 x 428 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Wightwick Manor, West Midlands
NT 1288093
Summary
Coloured chalks drawing on two horizontally joined sheets of pale blue paper, Alexa Wilding holding an Apple by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London 1828 - Birchington 1882), monogrammed and dated centre right: GDR 1866. The subject appeared in Rossetti's Monna Vanna, 1866, in Tate Britain. Henry Treffry Dunn, Rossetti's studio assistant said of the sitter that she possesses, 'a lovely face, beautifully moulded in every feature, full of quiescent, soft mystical repose that suited his [Rossetti's] conceptions admirably, but without any variety of expression. She sat like the Sphynx waiting to be questioned and with always a vague reply in return.'
Provenance
Thomas Ayres; his sale Christie's 23 April 1906 (26) bought in; Christie's, 2nd May 1907; given to National Trust by an anonymous donor in 2004
Makers and roles
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London 1828 - Birchington 1882), artist
References
Surtees 1971 Virginia Surtees, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882). A Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols., Oxford 1971, 530 Spencer-Longhurst 2011 Paul Spencer-Longhurst, 'Works on paper by Rossetti, Burne-Jones and their contemporaries recently donated to Wightwick Manor', The Burlington Magazine, Vol CLII, no. 1297, April 2011, pp. 232-240, 2. fig. 24