Dante Gabriel Rossetti

(British, 1828-1882)

Cartoon for a stained-glass window showing The Sermon on the Mount, made for All Saints, Selsley

Footnotes

Provenance
Given by the artist to Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Theodore Watts-Dunton (at the death of the above in 1909); to his wife, Clara Reich, at his death in 1914.
Thomas James Wise (gifted by the above); to his brother, Herbert Athal Wise, at his death in 1937; to his son, Leslie George Wise, of Durban, South Africa, at his death in 1951.
Thence by descent to the present private collection, South Africa.

Exhibited
South Africa, University of Natal, Old Masters of Yesteryear.

The architect G.F. Bodley entrusted the making of stained glass for the church of All Saints at Selsley in Gloucestershire to Morris and Philip Webb. They in turn recruited Rossetti, who was asked to make a series of designs for glass in the chancel as well as for the glass to which the present cartoon is related, showing The Sermon on the Mount, in the church's south aisle. Others who were brought in on the project were Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones. This was the first scheme of stained glass to be made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., and was an important demonstration of how well these various designers could work together to create an effect of harmonious unity. For images and description of the completed scheme, see A. Charles Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and his Circle, New Haven, 1974, two volumes, I, ills 33-6; II, pp. 171-3.

In the present cartoon, as in the completed window, the standing figure of Christ is seen with hands raised as he preaches. Seated on the left of Christ, and to whom he faces, are the figures of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene, and behind them Saints John and James, while on the right, and to whom Christ turns his back, appear St Peter and Judas Iscariot. In the drawing, each of these figures is identified in capital letters within their haloes. Friends of the artist and family members modelled for the figures: Elizabeth Siddal may be recognised as having sat for the Virgin; Fanny Cornforth is immediately recognisable as the model for the Magdalene; the poet Algernon Swinburne appears as St John, and the painter Simeon Solomon for St James; George Meredith was supposedly the model for the figure of Christ; William Morris was caricatured with tousled hair and dense black beard as St Peter; while behind him the loathed art dealer Ernest Gambart, with whom Rossetti was at the time at odds in connection with his outstanding debt to the executors of Thomas Plint, was insultingly shown as Judas, his head resting on his hand as if in devious or angry pattern of thought, and facing away from Christ as if deliberately ignoring the words that were being spoken.

Rossetti made two other preparatory drawings for the subject in c. 1861, now in Leeds City Art Gallery (Surtees 142a) and William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow (Surtees 142). The present drawing, of which neither Virginia Surtees and A. Charles Sewter were aware, appears to have been the final cartoon from which the stained-glass makers were to work.

The design was reused in 1864 to provide a memorial window to a Miss Polidori (presumably a relation of Rossetti's mother Frances, née Polidori) in Christ Church, Albany Street.

We are grateful to Christopher Newall for compiling this catalogue entry.