This article forms part of the Decorative and Applied Arts Encyclopedia, a master reference hub providing a structured overview of design history, materials, movements, and practitioners.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a British painter and poet. He was born in London.
Education
He studied drawing with Cotman and, in 1848, with Holman Hunt.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
1848 Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Rossetti founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 1850, he painted frescoes for the Oxford Union debating hall with William Morris. Morris, G.F. Watts, Edward Burne-Jones, and John Ruskin began supporting the Pre-Raphaelites in 1851 and later became members.
In the 1860s, Rossetti, like his friend James Abbot McNeill Whistler, began to collect Chinese porcelain and Japanese woodcuts. Profoundly affected by the death of his wife, Elizabeth Siddal, in 1862, Rossetti became increasingly eccentric and ceased painting in 1877. He published Poems (1870) and his last work, Ballads and Sonnets (1881).
Hunt and Morris encouraged him to become involved in the applied arts in the early years. Rossetti designed furniture and stained glass and, primarily through his graphic design, was influential on the continent and in the USA.
Rossetti was involved in forming Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, the Arts and Crafts decorating firm founded by William Morris and others, and contributed designs.
Sources
Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.
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