Saint Cecilia

Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1857

Brown ink

99 x 82 mm

This is Rossetti’s final preparatory drawing for ‘St Cecilia’ in Tennyson’s Poems, more generally known as ‘the Moxon Tennyson.’ Rossetti’s image is an intense visual response to a single stanza in which the poet describes St Cecily and her encounter with an angel: ‘her hair/Wound with white roses … An angel look’ed at her’ (Tennyson 118). The drawing, however, shows so much more – placing the liaison in a toytown setting and adding details such as the apple-chomping soldier. The published engraving shows the angel kissing rather than just looking at his saint. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]