Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Apology Letter for Delayed Painting Goes on Display

A letter from 1868 in which Dante Gabriel Rossetti apologizes to collector George Rae for the five-year delay in delivering the painting "Sibylla Palmifera" (1870) has gone on display at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Wirral, near Liverpool. The letter, previously held in the archives of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, cites "drunkenness and malaise," "other annoying symptoms," and "constant diarrhea" as reasons for the delay. Rae had paid a 300-pound deposit (equivalent to nearly 35,000 euros today) in December 1865. In 1866, Rossetti said he could not complete the work; in July 1868, he sent only the frame and its invoice. Rae's final plea, sent at Christmas 1870, urged Rossetti to finish the painting as a moment of relaxation. The work was delivered later that year. Scholar Melissa Gustin, curator at the National Museum of Liverpool, doubts Rossetti's excuses, suggesting he was likely drunk and that his ailments were self-inflicted. Rossetti, born Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti in London in 1828, was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood alongside William Holman Hunt, Ford Madox Brown, and John Everett Millais. His brother William Michael and sister Christina were also part of the group. The Tate Britain celebrated the Rossettis in a 2023 exhibition. Rossetti died in Birchington in 1882, twelve years after completing "Sibylla Palmifera," likely due to addiction to the sedative chloral.