Mnemosyne. Mnemosyne, also titled Lamp of Memory and Ricordanza, is an oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti begun in 1875 or early 1876 and completed in 1881.
Jane Morris was the model, and Frederick Richards Leyland bought the painting in 1881 and displayed it in his drawing room with five other Rossetti stunners. At about the same time Rossetti, a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was painting Astarte Syriaca, a larger painting completed in 1877 with Morris in a very similar pose.
Mnemosyne began as an oil study for Astarte Syriaca, for which Jane Morris sat over the winter of 1875-1876, but Rossetti later worked it up as an image of Mnemosyne, the Greek personification of Memory. Rossetti wrote to his mother about the two paintings on 29 April 1876: I have twice commenced the Venus Astarte subject.
The second commencement is I believe quite a success for me, my best; and the heads are now all fully secured. I have lately been working up as a separate picture the principal head of the first commencement, which, though I was bent on doing it still better for the picture, is by no means a failure.
I am making it into another design of head and hands only, to be called Memory, or La Ricordanza which word I suppose is as admissible Italian as Rimembranza. A month later Rossetti was considering ordering a frame for the painting and selling it to Clarence Fry. Fry declined and in J
Jane Morris was the model, and Frederick Richards Leyland bought the painting in 1881 and displayed it in his drawing room with five other Rossetti stunners. At about the same time Rossetti, a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was painting Astarte Syriaca, a larger painting completed in 1877 with Morris in a very similar pose.
Mnemosyne began as an oil study for Astarte Syriaca, for which Jane Morris sat over the winter of 1875-1876, but Rossetti later worked it up as an image of Mnemosyne, the Greek personification of Memory. Rossetti wrote to his mother about the two paintings on 29 April 1876: I have twice commenced the Venus Astarte subject.
The second commencement is I believe quite a success for me, my best; and the heads are now all fully secured. I have lately been working up as a separate picture the principal head of the first commencement, which, though I was bent on doing it still better for the picture, is by no means a failure.
I am making it into another design of head and hands only, to be called Memory, or La Ricordanza which word I suppose is as admissible Italian as Rimembranza. A month later Rossetti was considering ordering a frame for the painting and selling it to Clarence Fry. Fry declined and in J
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