Pre-Raphaelites Return to the Delaware Art Museum
WILMINGTIN, DE, November 8, 2007. America's largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art has come home to the Delaware Art Museum following an international tour.
Seven young men calling themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (P.R.B.) gathered in London in 1848, united by a shared distrust for the Royal Academy, the sanctioned art institution of the day. They turned for inspiration to the art of the Middle Ages-the time "before Raphael." Their subjects were drawn primarily from literature, including the Bible, Shakespeare, and the poets of their own age, such as Alfred Tennyson and John Keats. The Pre-Raphaelites were attracted to a type of feminine beauty characterized by strong features and brilliant red hair. The Delaware Art Museum's collection is particularly strong in works from after the 1870s, in which women-dreamy, sensual, and provocative-are featured.
As the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood gradually dispersed, new inspiration appeared when William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti became close friends. In 1861, Morris founded the firm that would become Morris and Company, designing hand-crafted household objects, and signaling the beginning of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
The Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art consists of over 150 works, including paintings, drawings, photographs, decorative arts, and illustrated books. A website, www.preraph.org, is dedicated to the collection.
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