Dante Gabriel Rossetti

As a young man, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was torn between painting and poetry, but after the critic Leigh Hunt advised that if he painted as well as he wrote, he may be a rich man, he chose the former as his profession.

The author of this monograph identifies Rossetti as a source of inspiration for European Symbolism; the femmes fatales that dominate his canvasses have recurred as a theme in many Symbolist paintings.

His work has also inspired the second wave of Pre-Raphaelitism, an elegant and calligraphic version associated with his disciple Burne-Jones.