Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Introduction
Early life and works
The later years
Poetry

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

Doppelgänger theme shown in “How They Met Themselves,” oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

Algernon Charles Swinburne, watercolour by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1862; in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, photograph by Lewis Carroll, 1863

At a Glance

Dante Gabriel Rossetti summary

Quizzes

Color pastels, colored chalk, colorful chalk. Hompepage blog 2009, arts and entertainment, history and society

Ultimate Art Quiz

Close-up of a palette held by a man. Mixing paint, painting, color mixing.

Artists, Painters, & Architects

Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry

A Study of Poetry

4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

Famous Poets and Poetic Form

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

Poetry: First Lines

Related Questions

How did Dante Gabriel Rossetti help found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood?
How did Dante Gabriel Rossetti influence British painting and decorative arts after the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ended?
How did Dante Gabriel Rossetti influence Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris?
How did Dante Gabriel Rossetti respond to Robert Buchanan’s criticism?
How did Dante Gabriel Rossetti use small details to create mood in poems such as My Sister’s Sleep?
How did Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s paintings differ from the detailed realism of William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais?
How did Elizabeth Siddal’s death affect Dante Gabriel Rossetti?
How did Gabriele Rossetti’s interest in Dante influence Dante Gabriel Rossetti?
How did James McNeill Whistler influence Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s later art?
How did John Ruskin support Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite artists?
How did William Blake influence Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s artistic ideas?
How did the Fleshly School of Poetry controversy affect Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s health?
How did the later Pre-Raphaelite movement differ from the original Brotherhood’s focus on truth to nature?
How were Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s buried poems recovered in 1869?
What was Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s role in decorating the Oxford Union debating chamber?
When and where did Dante Gabriel Rossetti die?
When and where was Dante Gabriel Rossetti born?
When did Dante Gabriel Rossetti marry Elizabeth Siddal?
Where did Dante Gabriel Rossetti study art as a teenager?
Which Dante Gabriel Rossetti poem was inspired by a painting by Giorgione in the Louvre?
Which artistic ideals did the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood reject?
Which books did Dante Gabriel Rossetti publish during the early 1880s?
Which historical event provides the setting for Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem The Last Confession?
Which literary sources inspired Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s paintings during the 1850s?
Which painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti depicts a ghostly meeting between lovers?
Which religious scenes did Dante Gabriel Rossetti paint in his first two oil paintings?
Which siblings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti became important writers or critics?
Which translation collection did Dante Gabriel Rossetti publish in 1861?
Which writers influenced Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s early reading?
Who was Ford Madox Brown and how did he influence Dante Gabriel Rossetti?
Who were Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s parents?
Who were the seven original members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood?
Why did Charles Dickens criticize the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1850?
Why did Dante Gabriel Rossetti bury the manuscript of his poems with Elizabeth Siddal?
Why did Dante Gabriel Rossetti stop exhibiting his paintings in public after 1850?
Why did Dante Gabriel Rossetti turn from oil painting to watercolours?
Why did Robert Buchanan call Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s work the Fleshly School of Poetry?
Why did the Oxford Union mural project help inspire arts and crafts design?
Why did the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood choose its name?
Why is Dante Gabriel Rossetti known as a master of the sonnet?
Who influenced Peter Paul Rubens?
Why is William Wordsworth important?
What was William Wordsworth’s childhood like?
What did William Wordsworth write?
Why is Lord Byron significant?
What was Lord Byron’s disability?
Why did Lord Byron leave England in 1816?
What is a Byronic hero?
Who was Lord Byron’s famous daughter?
What was Lord Byron’s early life like?

Visual Arts Painting Painters

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External Websites

The Art Story - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Victorian Web - Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Art in Context - Dante Gabriel Rossetti ï¿½ Studying the Famous Pre-Raphaelite Artist
National Museums Liverpool - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Humanities LibreTexts - Biography of Dante Gabriel Rosetti
Poetry Foundation - Biography of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

English artist

Also known as: Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti

Written by

William Gaunt

Art historian. Special correspondent on art subjects, The Times, London. Author of The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy; The Aesthetic Adventure.

William GauntAll

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 4, 2026 •History

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (born May 12, 1828, London, England—died April 9, 1882, Birchington-on-Sea, Kent) was an English painter and poet who helped found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of painters treating religious, moral, and medieval subjects in a nonacademic manner. Dante Gabriel was the most celebrated member of the Rossetti family. After a general education in the junior department of King’s College (1836–41), Rossetti hesitated between poetry and painting as a vocation. When about 14...

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