Study for 'The Blessed Damozel'

This is a study for the figures of two lovers in the upper-right corner of The Blessed Damozel (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Surtees, no. 244), an important work of 1875-8 executed for William Graham, a wealthy India merchant and Liberal M.P. for Glasgow, who was one of Rossetti's most consistent patrons. The picture was commissioned in 1871 and illustrates the artist's well-known early poem of the same name. The main painting, in which the Damozel herself is seen leaning from 'the gold bar of Heaven', was completed in 1877, and on 31 December that year Graham asked Rossetti to add a predella showing her earthly lover gazing up to Heaven.

In the upper part of the painting, behind the head of the Damozel, are eleven pairs of lovers against the sunset, illustrating the third verse of the poem:

‘Around her, lovers, newly met,
’Mid deathless love’s acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remembered names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.’

The adoring embraces of the ghostly figures are in stark contrast to the wistful longing and loneliness of the Damozel and her earthly lover in the predella below. The current drawing depicts the pair to the far right, who gaze into each other’s eyes with a passionate intensity. Capturing the depth of their emotion, it provides a distillation of the atmosphere of the larger work.