Der Tagtraum

By 1880 Rossetti was near the end. He had two years to live, his health wrecked by chloral and drink, and this is among the last things he finished. The woman is Jane Morris, wife of his friend and business partner William Morris, and the person Rossetti had loved and painted for the better part of two decades. He first meant to call it a spring picture, then settled on The Day Dream and moved the season to early summer, setting her high in the boughs of a sycamore with a book fallen open in her lap. In her fingers is a sprig of honeysuckle, which Victorians read as a token of love. It was commissioned by the collector Constantine Ionides, who left it to the museum in 1900.