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Dante
Gabriel Rossetti was born in London on 12 May
1828 and he died on Easter Day, 9 April 1882.
He spent nearly his entire working life in the
city of his birth, and indeed he only left Great
Britain three times, in each case but the first
quite briefly. Though his work is steeped in
Italian traditions (both poetical and pictorial),
DGR never visited Italy.
He is first and always an English -- more, a
London -- writer and artist. DGR's interests
in writing and painting appeared early, encouraged
by his immediate family life as well as by the
literary interests of his grandfather Polidori.
The children were writing in the early 1840s
and DGR was also beginning to draw and paint.
He went to Sass's drawing school in 1841 and
in 1845 moved to the Antique School of the Royal
Academy. He did not work well under academic
tutelage, however, and in 1848 he dropped away
from school altogether.
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