A Vision of Fiammetta

Infobox Painting

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backcolor=#FBF5DF
painting_alignment=right
image_size=250px
title= A Vision of Fiammetta
artist= Dante Gabriel Rossetti
year= 1878
type=Oil on canvas
height= 140
width= 91
height_inch= 55
width_inch = 36
diameter_cm =
diameter_inch =
city=
museum= Collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber

"A Vision of Fiammetta" is an oil painting in the Pre-Raphaelite which was created by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1878. The painting was one half of one of Rossetti's "double works", accompanying his "Ballads and Sonnets" (1881). Maria Spartali Stillman modelled for the painting.

ubject

The frame of the painting is inscribed with three texts: the sonnet by Boccaccio entitled "On his Last Sight of Fiammetta" which inspired the painting. Also included are Rossetti's translation of the sonnet, and his own original composition which mirrors the subject of the painting, entitled "Fiametta. For a Picture":

:Behold Fiammetta, shown in Vision here.:Gloom-girt 'mid Spring-flushed apple-growth she:stands;:And as she sways the branches with her hands,:Along her arm the sundered bloom falls sheer,:In separate petals shed, each like a tear;:While from the quivering bough the bird expands:His wings. And lo! thy spirit understands:Life shaken and shower'd and flown, and Death:drawn near.

:All stirs with change. Her garments beat the air::10 The angel circling round her aureole:Shimmers in flight against the tree's grey bole::While she, with reassuring eyes most fair,:A presage and a promise stands; as 'twere:On Death's dark storm the rainbow of the Soul.

Provenence

The painting was originally in the possession of J. M. W. Turner, but through a sequence of other owners has now found its way into the collection of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. [http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s252.rap.html A Vision of Fiammetta] , "Dante Gabriel Rossetti Archive".]

References