Ashley MS 3845

'Venus Verticordia': a sonnet written for his eponymous picture by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; [1868?]. Autograph fair copy, with revisions, entitled as above, written on one side only of a quarto leaf of ruled cream laid paper, clearly a page torn from a notebook. Watermark stringed bugle on crowned shield above the letters 'GW'. Rossetti has added an alternative version of ll. 6-8 below the text, and below that two further versions of l. 8. The version of the text found in the MS., if the alternative version of ll. 6-8 is chosen, differs from that first printed in Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1868, by W. M. Rossetti and A. C. Swinburne in ll. 2, 4 and 5, and by one word in ll. 7 and 9. The poem was reprinted in Poems, 1870, p. 271, with changes in ll. 1 and 14, and with the title 'Venus', and included in The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1911, p. 210 in a version which follows Poems, 1870, except in l. 14 where the version found in Notes has been preferred. Ashley Library Catalogue, ix, p. 114. In his diary for 16 Jan. 1868 (Rossetti Papers, 1903, p. 296) W. M. Rossetti wrote 'G has written a sonnet for his Venus picture . . .' The text included in the red chalk study for the painting Venus Verticordia (at Buscot Park, Berkshire), which is dated 1863 by Virginia Sutees in her The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti A Catalogue Raisonné, 1971, differs from the text found in the MS. in l. 2, and by one word in l. 7 and one word in l. 9. It is thus closer than any, and conflicts with W. M. Rossetti's dating, but since the paper of 3845 is identical with that found in 3846 it probably does date from 1868.

Quarto; ff. i+1.

Poetry ENGLISH: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet and painter: Sonnet, 'Venus Verticordia', by Dante Gabriel Rossetti: [1868?]: Autogr. fair copy.