The Salutation of Beatrice

Artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British, 1828-1882)

Place of OriginEngland

Date1880-1882

DimensionsPainting: 60 3/4 × 36 in. (154.3 × 91.4 cm)
Frame: 73 × 49 1/2 × 3 1/2 in. (185.4 × 125.7 × 8.9 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1960.8

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 32

Label TextThe woman in this painting embodies the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty with her pale face, full lips, and thick, wavy, chestnut hair. Painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of 19th-century British artists and writers. They admired early Italian Renaissance art (pre-Raphael) and advocated the direct observation of nature, in contrast to what they saw as the insincere and overly polished British academic style. In 1861 Rossetti published a translation of the Vita Nuova (New Life) by his namesake Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), a series of autobiographical sonnets detailing Dante’s unrequited love for Florentine gentlewoman Beatrice Portinari. The Salutation of Beatrice illustrates lines from the second sonnet in Vita Nuova. You can read the poem—both in the original Italian and in Rossetti’s English translation—on the gilded frame, which Rossetti designed specifically for this painting. Beatrice dominates the composition, but Dante can be seen in the background, comforted by the winged personification of Love.Published ReferencesSharp, W., Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A Record and a Study, London, 1882, pp. 264-265, no. 311.

"Dante Gabriel Rossetti," Harper's, LXV, May 1882, p. 700, repr. p. 696.

Rossetti, W.M., "Notes on Rossetti and His Works," Art Journal, 1884, p. 208.

Childes, T., "A Pre-Raphaelite Mansion," Harper's, LXXXII, Dec. 1890, p. 84.

Marillier, H.C., "The Salutation of Beatrice as Treated Pictorially by D.G. Rossetti," Art Journal, Dec. 1899, pp. 356-357, repr.

Carey, Elisabeth Luther, The Rossettis, New York and London, 1900, pp. 177, 295, no. 194.

Rossetti, W.M., "D.G. Rossetti," Art Journal, Easter Art Annual, 1902, p. 32.

Marillier, H.C., Dante Gabriel Rossetti, An Illustrated Memorial of His Art and Life, London, 1904, pp. 141-142, 172, no. 385.

Waugh, E., Rossetti, His Life and Works, New York, 1928, p. 212.

Doughty, Oswald, A Victorian Romantic, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, London, 1960, p. 632.

Rogers, Jr., M.F., "The Salutation of Beatrice: by Dante Gabriel Rossetti," Connoisseur, CLIII, July 1963, pp. 180-181, repr.

Coke, Van Deren, The Painter and the Photograph, Albuquerque, 1964, p. 15, repr. p. 14.

Scharf, Aaron, Art and Photography, London, 1968, pp. 80, 266.

Surtees, Virginia, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), a Catalogue Raisonne, Oxford, 1971, I, no. 260, II, pl. 390.

The Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, pp. 143-144, pl. 336.

Bryson, John, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Jane Morris: Their Correspondence, Oxford, 1976, p. 162, no. 2, p.174, p. 179, repr. p. 177.

Faxon, Alicia Craig, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, New York, 1989, p. 24.

Neckers, Pamela, "TMA Highlights from the Collection: the Salutation of Beatrice," Montage, vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 1994/Jan. 1995, p. 5, repr.

Massey, James and Shirley Maxwekk, Arts and Crafts, New York, 1995, repr. p. 63.

Stiles, Gloria J. and Mary Jo Mermer-Welly, "Children Having Children: Art Therapy in a Community-Based Early Adolescent Pregnancy Program," Art Therapy: Journal of the American Association, vol. 15, no. 3, 1998, p. 172, fig. 8.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 261, repr. (col.).

Exhibition HistoryLondon, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Works by Old Masters... Including a Special Selection from the Works of John Linnell and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1883, no. 323.

London, New Gallery, Winter Exhibition, 1897, no. 58.

Manchester, City Art Gallery, Loan Exhibition of Works by Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelites, 1911, no. 214.

Indianapolis, Herron Museum of Art, The Pre-Raphaelites, 1964, no. 78, repr.

New York, Gallery of Modern Art, 1964.

New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Double Work of Art, 1976, pp. 99, 100, 101, repr. no. 62, p. 113.

Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum; Indianapolis, Indianapolis Museum of Art, John Ruskin and the Victorian Eye, 1993, p. 150, fig. 113.