Christian Rossetti wrote one of my favorite poems "Goblin Market" and the oft sung "In The Bleak Midwinter", set to music by Gustav Holst. Rossetti was viewed by her colleagues as a feminist and staunch avdvocate for human rights. Here is the cover for the collection of poems illustrated by her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The model for the cover was his wife, Elizabeth Sidel who overdosed on opiates most likely due to post-partum depression, but she was a popular model for many pre-Raphaelite painters (ex. Ophelia by John Evertt Millais, 1862). 
After her death Dante painted, "Beata Beatrix" as an homage to her.
In stark contrast we see her self-portrait as lying well outside of the Pre-Raphaelite idiom.
Check out "When I am Laid in Earth" linked to this post.
3 comments:
She sounds like a person I should be much more historically familiar with. I will take some time to google her and add Ms. Rossetti and her work to my collection of accomplished and inspirational women to know... that seems to be more important to me all of a sudden with a daughter on the way.
thanks.
I think she had a difficult life and from what I can gather there were a number of health and mental problems in the family, however, I think she was admirable from an ethical standpoint and her spiritual views were very strong governing many of her life decisions.
An interesting element to all this is that Christina looks a lot like Dante's wife and the portrayal of Elizabeth is closer, in many ways to Christina, unless of course they did have the same jaw-line.
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