Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painter, poet and designer, was born Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti on 12th May 1828, he was a co-founder of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was born to Grabriele Rossetti, an exiled Italian patriot and scholar. He had one sister, Christina, a poet.
Rossetti showed talent for literacy early in life winning acclaim for The Blessed Damozel before he was twenty years old. While at Royal Academy Antique School (from 1845-47), he met William Holman Hunt and John Millias, with whom he created the PRB in 1848.
The first of his Pre-Raphaelite paintings were of religion with elements of mythic symbolism, most notably, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin - 1849 and Ecce Ancilla Domini - 1850. Cristicism of his work caused Rossetti to withdraw from public exhibitions and to watercolours which could be sold privatly. His romantic theme in both paintings and poetry) inspired his friends at that time, Burne-Jones and William Morris.
In 1860 Rossetti married Elizabeth Siddel whom posed for many of his fine works, most famous is Beata Beatrix which Rossetti recreated after Lizzie Siddel's death.
Towards the end of his life, he fell into a deep depression possibly caused by the critics attack on his poetry which he had burried with his wife. He finally died in 1882.
