Portrait Of Miss Herbert 1876

Dante Gabriel Rossetti made this portrait of Miss Herbert sometime in the mid-19th century with chalk on paper. Rossetti was an important figure in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of artists reacting against what they saw as the stale academic art of their time. Instead, they looked to the art of the late medieval period for inspiration, before the High Renaissance and the influence of the Royal Academy. This portrait exemplifies the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic with its romanticized depiction of beauty and the subject's wistful gaze. Rossetti often used friends and family as models, imbuing his portraits with an intimate quality. In a rapidly industrializing England, the Pre-Raphaelites offered an alternative vision of beauty and a rejection of the established art world. By consulting letters, diaries, and exhibition reviews from the period, we can better understand the cultural context in which Rossetti was working and the impact his art had on Victorian society.