Artwork of the Week: August 4
Here, a Roman widow sits next to her beloved’s cinerary urn. The inscription on the urn reads “Dis Manibus,” a phrase commonly found on Roman tombstones meaning “to the Manes,” or the spirits of the dead. In each hand, the widow plays a seven-stringed harp made of tortoiseshell, a reference to Hermes’s invention of the harp in Greek myth. Roses—a flower linked to the Greek goddess Aphrodite—surround the widow, symbolizing her immortal love for her husband, a love that transcends death.
Although titled The Roman Widow, Rossetti’s inspiration for this painting goes beyond Classical antiquity. As Siddhartha V. Shah has noted, the widow’s silver wedding girdle wreathing the urn may be a Rajasthani belt and her headscarf a piece of Indian muslin, both evidence of Britain’s ongoing colonization of India in the nineteenth century.
This painting, an intimate inquiry of female beauty and archetypes, is one in a series of studies conducted by Rossetti throughout the 1860s and 1870s. As a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood—a group of artists who were radical in their dedication to visual detail, sensual portrayal of women, and use of common people as models—Rossetti often placed his working-class subjects in lavish scenes inspired by history, literature, and legend.
The model for this painting, Alice Wilding (also known as Alexa), was a dressmaker who was scouted by Rossetti on a London street in 1865. Despite her inexperience and modest background, Wilding brings an undeniably theatrical quality and self-possessed presence to this funerary scene, testifying to her early aspirations of becoming an actress. Her flowing red hair, full lips, and long neck exemplified Rossetti’s conceptualization of the ideal feminine beauty.
For further reading, see Iraida Rodríguez-Negrón, The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce (Ponce: Museo de Arte de Ponce, 2025); William E. Fredeman and Roger C. Lewis, The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Vol. 6, the Last Decade, 1873-1882, Kelmscott to Birchington, 1873-1874 (Woodbridge, UK: D.S. Brewer with the Modern Humanities Research Association, 2006); D.M.R. Bentley, “Intellectual, Spiritual, Super-Subtle, Aesthetically Pleasing: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s ‘Roman Widow,’” The British Art Journal 10, no. 2 (2009); Thomas J. Mathiesen, Apollo’s Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999); Evelyn Waugh, Rossetti: His Life and Works (London: Duckworth, 1928); Carol Jacobi, ed., The Rossettis (London: Tate, 2023); Edwin Becker et al., Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Thames & Hudson, 2003); Jill Berk Jiminez and Joanna Banham, Dictionary of Artists’ Models (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001); and Martin Ellis et al., Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement (American Federation of Arts, 2018).
This work is currently on display in the exhibition The Sense of Beauty.
