Beata Beatrix

Beata Beatrix at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery is one of several versions of this subject that Rossetti produced after the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal in 1862. The original conception used Beatrice's death as described by Dante in the Vita Nuova as a vehicle for private grief over Siddal's death from a laudanum overdose. The Brighton version participates in this charged personal symbolism. Beatrice is shown at the moment of her mystical translation from life to death — with closed eyes and an expression of serene absorption, a dove depositing the white poppy of death and sleep in her outstretched hands. In the background, figures of Dante and Love observe across a London bridge that collapses past and present, medieval Florence and contemporary Chelsea. The repeated versions testify to the subject's unresolved emotional weight for Rossetti.

The compositional structure places the figure in close-up with a deliberately unfocused background, creating a sense of the figure dissolving between two states of being. The warm gold light that suffuses the atmosphere is achieved through carefully glazed warm tones over the entire picture surface.