Tate Britain Hosts Major Rossetti Retrospective with Focus on Pre-Raphaelite Women

The Tate Britain in London is presenting 'The Rossettis', the first retrospective dedicated to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the largest exhibition of his iconic works, running until September 24, 2023. The show highlights the contributions of Pre-Raphaelite women including Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth, and Jane Morris. Co-organized with the Delaware Art Museum, where it will be on view from October 21, 2023 to January 28, 2024, the exhibition reexamines the Pre-Raphaelite movement through the activities of key figures: poet Christina Rossetti, poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Elizabeth Siddal (also known as Elizabeth Rossetti after marriage). Initially seen as controversial in the Victorian era, they became international celebrities and revolutionized the arts in Britain and beyond, pushing poetry and painting to express real-life experiences and emotions. A notable feature is the inclusion of Elizabeth Siddal's own work—rare surviving watercolors and important drawings—produced over thirty years, alongside numerous poems by Christina Rossetti, the most prolific writer among the four Rossetti siblings with about 900 published poems. Both Christina and Elizabeth wrote poems giving voice to young women forced into marriage or seduced and marginalized, an early courageous denunciation of the female condition in Victorian times.