"Bird Sighting"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I saw this exquisite painting at the Delaware Art Museum a few years back.  I felt .... lucky.  There haven't been many chances in my life to see those Pre-Raphaelite portraits of women in their luxurious clothes and settings.  They're so yummy.

The painting in my painting is 'Veronica Veronese' by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, done in 1872 - first sold to a frequent collector, a rich shipping magnate Frederick Leyland, changed hands a few times then it was donated to the Delaware Art Museum in 1935.

Rossetti's painting is filled with symbolism - the uncaged bird, the daffodils, the camomile in the cage.  Rossetti was English, a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists and poets, which evolved through the years.