A Christmas Carol - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Description
A 1867 oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, depicting a woman playing a virginal attended by two figures in a decorative, medieval-inspired setting.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti completed A Christmas Carol in 1867. The composition depicts a central female figure playing a small musical instrument, identified as a double-banked virginal. Two attendants assist her, one combing her long hair while the other holds a small vessel. The scene is set against a background of blue tiles, which provides a cool contrast to the warm tones of the figures' garments and hair.
Rossetti employs a flattened perspective, typical of his later work, which draws inspiration from medieval art. The figures are arranged in a decorative manner, with the focus placed on the textures of the clothing and the physical presence of the women. The inclusion of the musical instrument and the specific arrangement of the figures suggest a domestic, ritualistic atmosphere. The artist uses a saturated palette, particularly in the red of the central figure's dress and the deep greens of the attendants' robes, to create a sense of visual density.
This work reflects Rossetti's interest in the aesthetic qualities of historical dress and music. The painting is not a literal depiction of a festive holiday scene, but rather a study of mood and form. The attention to detail in the instrument and the patterned textiles demonstrates the artist's focus on the decorative arts, a common theme among the Pre-Raphaelites. The work remains a representative example of Rossetti's mature style, where the narrative is secondary to the arrangement of colour and form.
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Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
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Specific Features
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Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
A Christmas Carol - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Artist Biography
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
He was born in London to an Italian political exile and named after the author of the Divine Comedy. His father was a professor of Italian at King's College. The household ran on poetry, politics, and argument. Rossetti wrote verse throughout his life and considered himself a poet as much as a painter.
His early paintings are small, bright, and meticulously detailed in the Pre-Raphaelite manner. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini have the flat, jewelled quality of medieval altarpieces. After 1860 the style changed. The paintings became larger, more sensual, and dominated by the face and figure of Jane Burden, who was William Morris's wife.
The relationship between Rossetti, Morris, and Jane is one of the more uncomfortable triangles in art history. Morris married her. Rossetti painted her obsessively. She modelled for Proserpine, La Pia de' Tolomei, and dozens of other works in which she appears as a mythological woman trapped in an unwanted situation. Whether the affair was physical remains debated. Morris, characteristically, said nothing publicly and channelled his feelings into wallpaper.
Rossetti buried a manuscript of his poems in his wife Lizzie Siddal's coffin when she died of a laudanum overdose in 1862. Seven years later he had the coffin exhumed to retrieve them. He published the poems. He was addicted to chloral hydrate by then and increasingly paranoid. He died in 1882, at fifty-three.
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