Beata Beatirx by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Rossetti draws a parallel in this picture between the Italian poet Dante's despair at the death of his beloved Beatrice and his own grief at the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal, who died on 11 February 1862. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) recounted the story of his unrequited love and subsequent mourning for Beatrice Portinari in the Vita Nuova.

The picture is a portrait of Elizabeth Siddall in the character of Beatrice. It has a hazy, transcendental quality, giving the sensation of a dream or vision, and is filled with symbolic references.

The symbolism in the painting of a red dove, a messenger of love, related back to Rossetti’s love for Siddal with the white poppy representing laudanum and the means of her death. Rossetti said he intended the painting “not as a representation of the incident of the death of Beatrice, but as an ideal of the subject, symbolised by a trance or sudden spiritual transfiguration”.