'Jane Morris', Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Black chalk on paper, dated 1865, 31.5 x 34.5cm, Private collection

Jane Morris later remembered that Rossetti's best drawings of her dated from 1865, when she began to sit regularly to him. This drawing bears out that statement. It is one of the most beautiful that Rossetti ever made.

The black chalk medium, softer than the earlier pencil drawings, gives a special expressive tenderness, yet with no loss of precision.