Annie Allen (for Marigolds) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
1828-1882 | British

Annie Allen (for Marigolds)

Chalk and pencil on blue paper

This breathtaking drawing by the great Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti offers an intimate glimpse into the artist's process. Serving as the foundation for a later painting entitled Marigolds, now in the collection of the Nottingham Castle Museum, this work captures a young woman named Annie Allen in remarkable detail with Rossetti's signature sensitivity and softness.

As one of the leaders of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Rossetti was inspired by natural beauty of all kinds, but especially of young women, whom he often called his "Stunners." His paintings are filled with depictions of the beautiful women in his circle, including Alexa Wilding, Fanny Cornforth and Jane Morris, and he often made detailed portrait studies like this one that are celebrated today as stunning works of art in their own right.

The subject of this work is Annie Allen, the niece of the gardener at Kelmscott Manor, where Rossetti lived and worked from 1871 until 1874 with his fellow artist William Morris. Annie was only 14 at the time, but Rossetti re-imagines her as one of his mesmerizing "stunners," looking out at the viewer with lowered eyelids and a demure half-smile. The angle of her head and her pose match the figure in the final painting, Marigolds, revealing that Rossetti was pleased with the outcome of this initial portrait.

Rossetti was a pivotal figure in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the revolutionary artistic movement he co-founded in 1848 alongside John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt. As both painter and poet, Rossetti championed the Brotherhood's radical rejection of academic conventions, advocating for a return to the detailed, vibrant techniques of early Renaissance masters before Raphael. His sensuous portrayals of medieval and literary subjects epitomized the movement's emphasis on a more emotional, symbolic approach to painting.

Rossetti was at the center of a broader cultural renaissance that sought to reunite art with poetry, craftsmanship with beauty, ultimately reshaping British artistic identity in the latter half of the 19th century. Today, his works are represented in the world's leading museums, and portrait studies such as this one can be found in important private and public collections, including of the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Tate and the Harvard Art Museums.

Circa 1873

Paper: 25 1/2" high x 20 3/4" wide (64.77 x 52.71 cm)
Frame: 37" high x 32 1/4" wide x 2 1/2" deep (93.98 x 81.92 x 6.35 cm)

Provenance:
The artist
The artist's sale, Christie's London, 12 May 1883, lot 41 as "Fleurs de Marie; Study for the Head in the Head in the Picture named Fleurs de Marie (or the Bower-maiden or The Gardener's Daughter)
Knowles, acquired from the above sale
Charles E. Feinberg, Detroit
Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, Los Angeles
Cass Canfield, New York, acquired from the above
Joan H. King, New York, acquired from the above in 1972, until 2000
Private Collection, New York, by descent from the above
M.S. Rau, New Orleans

Literature:
Virginia Surtees, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882): A Catalogue Raisonne, Oxford, 1971, p. 134, cat. no. 235A