The sundial shadows the number nine, the age Dante first saw Beatrice as well as the hour and day of her death. To the upper left is the personification of Love and to the right the figure of Dante, who doubles as a representation of Rossetti himself. Above rises the Ponte Vecchio, the Florentine bridge that served as the setting of Dante’s poem. “The Dove” was the artist’s nickname for Siddal, and a haloed dove delivers her a white poppy, a symbol of laudanum-a derivative of opium-which caused her death by overdose. Rossetti’s symbolism combines details from his personal life with those from La Vita Nuova. Rather, the work portrays her as if in a trance or altered spiritual state. While this picture is a tribute to Siddal, Rossetti was adamant that it does not represent her death. Rossetti’s scene draws a parallel between Dante’s love for the late Beatrice and his own affection for his recently deceased wife and muse, Elizabeth Siddal. Named after the thirteenth-century poet Dante Alighieri, Rossetti found inspiration for Beata Beatrix in his namesake’s La vita nuova (The New Life 1295). Both a poet and a painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a circle of Victorian artists who were united in their regard for medieval aesthetics.
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