Study for 'The Blessed Damozel'

The subject of this drawing is taken from the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem by the same title, which was first published in February 1850 in the Pre-Raphaelite magazine 'The Germ'. The subject is a young woman who has died and waits for her lover to join her in heaven. The poem was partly inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's ‘The Raven’ and reverses its narrative of a lover on Earth grieving the death of his loved one.

The finished oil painting is now in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. The painting was commissioned from Rossetti by the Scottish politician and art patron William Graham in 1871 and completed in 1877. The model was Alexa Wilding, a favourite of Rossetti who modelled for many of his paintings.