DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI | Sketch for Venus Verticordia

J.A. Crabtree Esq., from whom bought by Colnaghi's, London in January 1955;

Sold by Colnaghi's to L.S. Lowry, R.A., February 1955;

Christie's, 18 December 1984, lot 52;

Private collection;

Christie's, 5 June 2006, lot 106;

Private collection;

Sotheby's, London, 13 July 2010, lot 8, where purchased by Stan Battat

V. Surtees, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1971, p.206, no.580

This drawing relates to Rossetti's painting Venus Verticordia (oil version at Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, Bournemouth and a watercolour version sold in these rooms 10 December 2014, lot 8) begun in 1863 and completed in 1868. In this study the hand of Venus is cupped to hold the golden apple awarded to Venus by Paris and she is dressed in a low-cut bodice, little more than an underslip. William Michael Rossetti recalled that his brother had been 'on the look out for some person to serve as a model for the head and shoulders of his Venus, noticed in the street a handsome and striking woman, not very much less than perhaps than six feet high... He spoke to this person, who turned out to be a cook serving in some family in Portland Place, and from her he at first painted his large "Venus Verticordia".' This drawing probably depicts the cook, described by William Allingham as 'a very large young woman, almost a giantess.' She appears in another drawing relating to the painting in the Witt Collection at the Courtauld Institute, although it has been suggested that the present drawing predates it, perhaps earlier than any other sketch for the picture. It was owned by the painter L.S. Lowry.