s early as 1853 Rossetti was a visitor to photographic exhibitions. In his later years he used photographs for landscape backgrounds and for posthumous portraits. He was in the habit of having photographic copies made of his pictures. In one instance he even painted over a photograph. The most fruitful product of this interest was the series of photographs of Jane Morris taken at Rossetti's Chelsca home in July 1865. The photographer is unknown but each image was posed by Dante Gabriel and bears the stamp of his inspiration. The value of the series transcends the self-evident use the artist put them to in his pictures, for the angles of hands, tilting of the head, folds of drapery and so on. Through these photographs we are brought into contact with the flesh and blood figure who was Rossetti's last and most addictive muse. The fact that she remains as elusive as when drawn or painted by him goes some way to explaining his obsession: maybe he felt able to project so much onto her precisely because her real nature remained submerged. These photographs are perhaps the most revealing evidence we have of the dynamics of that particularly Victorian relationship. Artist and Ideal Woman. Here, we are transported to a Pre-Raphaelite ambience of 'uncrinolined women with their wild hair' described by the journalist Mrs. Howitt: and remembered by her as 'very curious, like some hot, struggling dream, in which the gorgeous and fantastic forms moved slowly about'.
