La Ghirlandata

Rossetti painted this in 1873 at Kelmscott Manor, the country house he was then sharing with the designer William Morris and Morris's wife Jane. He called it the greenest picture in the world, and he meant it, the woman's robe and the dense foliage around her all glowing the same deep green. The model at the golden harp was Alexa Wilding, and the two angel faces above are Morris's young daughter May. For all its richness it was meant to carry a shadow of death. Rossetti intended the dark blue flowers in the foreground to be poisonous monkshood, but he mistook the plant and painted harmless larkspur instead. The frame of the harp is carved with swans.