Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal - The Maries at the Sepulchre; and The Passing of Arthur

Price Realized £2,500

The Maries at the Sepulchre; and The Passing of Arthur
one inscribed 'By Lizzie R' by William Michael Rossetti and further inscribed 'The Maries at/The Sepulchre/Property of/MRS ROSSETTI ANGELI' (on the reverse of the backing sheet); and one with inscription 'King Arthur/not wanted' (on the reverse of the backing sheet)
pencil, on paper, unframed
3½ x 5½ in. (8.9 x 14 cm.); and smaller (2)

Provenance
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. William Michael Rossetti and by descent in his family to the present owner.


Literature
The Maries at the Sepulchre;
William Michael Rossetti, 'Dante Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal', Burlington Magazine, vol. I, no. 3, May 1903, p. 295.
Roger C. Lewis and Mark Samuels Lasner (eds.), Poems and Drawings of Elizabeth Siddal, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, 1978, pl. 8.


Exhibited
The Maries at the Sepulchre
London, Arts Council, Ruskin and his Circle, 1964, no. 247.
Sheffield, The Ruskin Gallery, Elizabeth Siddal: Pre-Raphaelite Artist, 1991, no. 22 (photograph only), illustrated in catalogue.
The Passing of Arthur
Sheffield, The Ruskin Gallery, Elizabeth Siddal: Pre-Raphaelite Artist, 1991, no. 13, illustrated in catalogue.

Dated circa 1855 in the Sheffield exhibition catalogue, the second drawing illustrates Tennyson's poem 'Morte d'Arthur'. One of Rossetti's two designs for 'The Palace of Art' in the famous Moxon edition of Tennyson of 1857 is comparable in subject and composition.

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