Jane Morris

Jane Morris is a highly recognized drawing created by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1873. This intimate portrait, rendered meticulously in pen and brown ink, captures the artist’s primary muse and complex companion, Jane Burden Morris. Although Rossetti is best known for his lush oil paintings, his drawings demonstrate an equally profound mastery of draftsmanship. The refined application of the brown ink emphasizes the model's distinctive features: her heavy, coiled hair, strong neck, and the characteristic gaze of profound melancholy often associated with the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic.

Jane Morris was the iconic figure of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, defining the ideal of beauty in the late Victorian period. While she was married to Rossetti’s close colleague, William Morris, Rossetti maintained a deep, intense emotional relationship with her for many years, depicting her repeatedly in celebrated works such as Astarte Syriaca. This specific portrait of the woman, completed later in Rossetti’s career, presents her directly rather than mythologizing her, capturing an immediacy often lost in his grander, allegorical compositions.

The original work resides in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The drawing’s importance to the study of nineteenth-century British art ensures its continued scholarly interest. As many of Rossetti’s works from this era have entered the public domain, high-quality prints and reproductions of this seminal portrait allow enthusiasts worldwide to study the distinctive features of Rossetti's most beloved subject.