''Monna Vanna'' is an 1866 oil on canvas painting (88.9 × 86.4 cm) by

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

. It was acquired by the collector

William Henry Blackmore William Henry Blackmore (2 August 1827 – 12 April 1878) was an English lawyer who gained a fortune by exploiting a large social network as an investment promoter. He used his fortune for philanthropy, primarily centred on his interest in Native ...

and later entered the collection of George Rae, one of Rossetti's patrons. It later passed from Rae to the joint ownership of Arthur Du Cros and

Otto Beit Sir Otto John Beit, 1st Baronet, KCMG, FRS (7 December 1865 – 7 December 1930) was a German-born British financier, philanthropist and art connoisseur. Life history and career Beit was born in Hamburg, Germany, the younger brother of Al ...

and it was purchased from them by the Tate Gallery in 1916 via the NACF – it is now in the collection of

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

in London.Tate Britain – ''Monna Vanna''
/ref> It shows a frontal half-length portrait of one of Rossetti's main models,

Alexa Wilding Alexa Wilding (born Alice Wilding, c. 1847 – 25 April 1884) was one of the favourite models of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, featuring in some of his finest paintings of the later 1860s and 1870s. She sat for more of h ...

, with her head turned to the right of the frame. She is shown with pale, luminous and delicate skin (fitting in with the

aestheticism Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be pro ...

of the timeMonna Vanna
/ref>) and a hard penetrating gaze. She holds a feather fan over her right shoulder as well wearing many kinds of jewellery, picked by the painter to show off his painterly skill – a red coral necklace, rings and earrings. In her hair are two spiral shell-shaped hairclips, accessories particularly loved by Rossetti and used here to emphasize the painting's circular composition. Rossetti's own opinion of the painting was that it was "probably the most effective as a room decoration that I have ever painted".

Title

Its original title was ''Venus Veneta'' (''Venetian Venus''), making it a response to Renaissance and classical archetypes, particular those by

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

and other 16th century painters – in a letter dated 27 September 1866, Rossetti stated his aim in painting it was to produce "a Venetian lady in a rich dress of white and gold – in short the Venetian ideal of female beauty". After its completion he renamed it ''Monna Vanna'' (''vain woman'') to underline the vanity of life or more likely to emphasize the subject's Italian origins. The new title derived from Monna Vanna ("Vain Woman"), a character in chapter XXIV of one of Rossetti's favourite books, ''

La Vita Nuova ''La Vita Nuova'' (; Italian for "The New Life") or ''Vita Nova'' (Latin title) is a text by Dante Alighieri published in 1294. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and ve ...

'' (1294) by his namesake

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

. The woman in question may refer to Giovanna, the beloved of the poet Guido Cavalcanti, who is heavily associated with images of springtime in Dante's work. The painter had translated the ''Vita'' into English in 1848 and it had intense personal significance to him, principally in its allusions to spring, referenced in this painting by the vase of flowers in the top right hand corner and the floral motifs on the woman's gold brocade robe. In 1873 Rossetti renamed it again, this time as ''Belcolore'', since he now felt the other titles did not fully indicate the modernity of the subject, but this did not last and ''Monna Vanna'' is still the accepted title.

References

{{Dante Gabriel Rossetti category:1866 paintings category:Portraits of women Paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Paintings based on works by Dante Alighieri Works based on La Vita Nuova