THE ROSSETTIS

WHAT? The Rossettis 

WHERE? Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG

WHEN? Now until 24th September 

WHY GO? For a Bohemian rhapsody!

What a family, thespians, poets, artists, activists, models and more. This glorious new Rossetti exhibition reveals everything you could ever want to know about Christina, Dante Gabriel and Elizabeth, (Siddal) the famous beauty painted time over and immortalised within the Pre-Raphaelite movement.  

There are poetry pods reciting Christina’s pearls of prose (she started writing aged 15) alongside rooms upon rooms of Rossetti works, from rough sketches by Elizabeth hitherto hidden to paintings by Gabriel, so famous they feel like familiar friends and an especially poignant lock of Elizabeth’s hair, her ‘crowning glory’.  It was sensually described in Gabriel’s poem, The Portrait which was buried with her, ‘our hair had to be untangled when we rose’.

Remembered primarily as the tragic muse, this epic exhibition helps redefine her place in the bohemian Rossetti saga but also explores Gabriel's relationship with the other women in his life including Jane Morris, wife of William Morris, and even reimagines his unrealised wallpaper design, cementing their wholly unconventional family affair. 

IN THE KNOW 

Dip into Ken Russell’s legendary 1967 biopic of Dante Gabriel Rossetti which runs alongside the exhibition. It famously dramatises the exhumation of Lizzie’s body when Gabriel reclaims the manuscript of poetry he had romantically buried with her - some notion of romance!