Rossetti's courtship

The present drawing is related to a fully worked up watercolor of the subject on a sheet of the same size, (Tate Britain, London). In 1850 Rossetti met Lizzie Siddal (1824-1862) and her ethereal beauty entranced the artist. By 1852, he had moved into rooms in Chatham Place and Lizzie was his constant companion. Despite Rossetti's almost obsessive love for Lizzie, their relationship was difficult and Rossetti's infidelity and his reluctance to marry her, along with her own fragile health, caused her to become increasingly dependent on laudanum. They were finally married in 1860 but the relationship did not improve and in 1862 Lizzie took an overdose of laudanum.

Beerbohm was an admirer of the Pre-Raphaelites and of Rossetti in particular and between 1916 and 1917 he made 23 watercolors which later constituted the illustrations for his 1922 publication, including that in Tate Britain, Rossetti and his Circle. This group of drawings is often considered to form Beerbohm's masterpiece.