Two Studies of Medieval Sculpture 1859

Dante Gabriel Rossetti made this pencil drawing, *Two Studies of Medieval Sculpture,* in 1859. Rossetti was deeply involved in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who rejected what they saw as the stale conventions of academic art. Instead, they sought inspiration in the art of the late medieval period. Here, the draped figures, likely of female saints or queens, echo the Pre-Raphaelite interest in portraying women from literature and history. While the Pre-Raphaelites wanted to bring back the artistic principles of the Medieval period, they arguably advanced a concept of idealized beauty, often sidelining the complex realities of women's lives. They lived in a society where women were often marginalized and relegated to domestic roles, and this tension shows in Rossetti's nostalgic yet filtered view of the past. Rossetti’s drawing shows the cultural and emotional distance from which the Victorians viewed the medieval past, and the complexity of how the Pre-Raphaelites understood and reinterpreted the art and values of this period.