Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Painter and Poet

Born in London in 1828, of British and Italian parentage, Dante Gabriel Rossetti became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown and later formed the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood to effect a revolution in English painting and poetry. His work in both forms was detailed, symbolic, mystical, and sometimes erotic. He was involved with two of the PRB `stunners', first Lizzie Siddal who died of a laudanum overdose, then Jane Morris. Notoriously, Rossetti buried his poetry manuscripts with Siddal, but later exhumed them. Latterly involved with William Morris's decorative arts firm, Rossetti died - a near recluse - in 1882, a Romantic Victorian revolutionary.