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PAG2-rossetti-lapia-jpg

This halftone reproduction of Rossetti’s painting “La Pia De' Tolomei (1868–1880)” depicts the Lady of Sienna from Dante’s Purgatorio in the Divine Comedy. It is a portrait for which Jane Morris, William’s Morris’s wife, was the model. The woman sits in profile with her face in three-quarter profile. She faces left with her back at the right side of the image. She sits with her knees up and her hands resting on her knees, in a long gown with billowing sleeves. She has long dark hair that falls past her shoulders with some tucked behind her left ear so the viewer can see her face. By her hip in the foreground, a book lies open with a crucifix lying on it, holding the pages open. There are also several sheets of paper sticking out from underneath the book on its left side. She appears to be sitting on an outdoor balcony with leaves climbing the wall behind her and birds in the sky in the upper left corner of the image. The birds fly over a bell tower and what appears to be the castle wall, over which, more of the balcony is present in the foreground with the top of a turret at the far corner behind it. Behind these building tops, a lush landscape with mountains appears in the far distance.