3765. Dante Gabriel Rossetti to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 183–184.
[London]
16 April 1856
Offered for sale by Quaritch, Catalogue 380, December 1923, item 160. 10 pp., sm. 4to. [1] Rossetti gives his views and opinions on art and describes several of the paintings being sent to the Royal Academy exhibition including Holman Hunt’s “Scapegoat,” [2] “Peace concluded,” “Children burning autumn leaves,” and “A Blind Girl,” by Millais. [3] He also speaks of the appearance of the fourth volume of Ruskin’s “Modern Painters,” and describes the book, giving a long quotation from it referring to RB. [4] Rossetti concludes: “of the poem! [5] I wonder what it is to be.) and to all your family, and Believe me, dear Browning, very sincerely yours D. G. Rossetti. I want you some day to tell me about the peculiar impropriety of elucescebat, [6] and who Ulpian [7] was.”
1. This letter and letter 3787 were sold together in Browning Collections as lot 269, described as follows: “Two A.L.s. 11½ pp. 8vo. April-May, 1856, interesting letters about the rejection of Page’s portrait of Browning by the [Royal] Academy, and speaking at some length of many important Pre-Raphaelite pictures exhibited at the Academy that year; he particularly praises W.L. Windus’ ‘Burd Helen,’ Hughes’ ‘Eve of St. Agnes,’ Millais’ ‘Autumn Leaves’ … and Holman Hunt’s ‘Scapegoat’ is also mentioned. Further he quotes from vol. IV of ‘Modern Painters,’ and Ruskin’s praise of ‘The Tomb at St. Praxed[’]s.’” Presumably, in this letter, Rossetti confirmed that he sent Page’s painting to the R.A. on 7 April (see letter 3758). Letter 3790 indicates that Rossetti informed RB of “the rejection of Page’s portrait” in letter 3787.
3. “Peace Concluded,” “Autumn Leaves,” and “The Blind Girl” were three of the five works exhibited by John Everett Millais.
5. Presumably, Rossetti is referring to Aurora Leigh.
6. “To shine forth.” Cf. RB, “The Tomb at St. Praxed’s” (1845), line 99. RB explains his use of the verb in letter 3790.
7. The name occurs in “The Tomb at St. Praxed’s,” lines 79 and 100. Dolmitius Ulpianus (d. 228) was a Roman jurist and imperial official, whose writings were noted for their elegance and judiciousness. In letter 3790 RB calls him a “copper latinist.”
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