The forbidden love of Francesca da Rimini and her brother-in-law Paolo Malatesta is one of the great love stories of European literature. Dante encountered the souls of the two lovers in Hell, and fainted with compassion upon hearing their tragic story. This watercolour depicts the fateful moment when One day For our delight, we read of Lancelot, How him love thrall’d. Alone we were, and no Suspicion near us … then he, who ne’er From me shall separate, at once my lips All trembling kiss’d. The book and writer both Were love’s purveyors. In its leaves that day We read no more … —Dante, Divine Comedy, Inferno, canto V Just as the story of the illicit love between the knight Lancelot and King Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, inflamed the passion of Paolo and Francesca, so the subject of romantic love in medieval literature captured the imagination of writers and artists of the Victorian period.
   Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and a poet himself, was fascinated with the story of Paolo and Francesca, having grown up immersed in the work of Dante, after whom he was named. His father, a professor of Italian, Rossetti’s siblings and he himself published translations and commentaries on Dante’s writings.
   This watercolour, which glows like a medieval stained-glass window, is an elaborated version of the left-hand panel of a triptych painted in 1855 (now in Tate, London). The central panel of the Tate triptych depicts Dante and Virgil gazing in distress towards the right panel, in which the intertwined lovers float through the flames of Hell, their eternal punishment following their murder by Francesca’s enraged husband, Paolo’s brother.
   The National Gallery of Victoria’s watercolour shows the lovers seated in an alcove before a bottle-glass window. The illuminated book slips, unnoticed, off Paolo’s lap as he embraces red-haired Francesca, who is modelled on Rossetti’s deceased wife and muse, Elizabeth Siddal. The watercolour was originally considerably smaller and was attached to another larger sheet, which allowed for the embellishments of the roses at their feet and side, and the coat of arms and draped ceiling above. Text by Alisa Bunbury from Prints and Drawings in the International Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, p. 93.

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   Perhaps the most complex of the Pre-Raphaelite frames in the collection is the one on Rossetti's Paolo and Francesca da Rimini.

   This relatively low profile frame makes use of vertical joins in the flat which is gilded direct to oak. This part (the flat) carries the label of the frame maker Foord & Dickinson, who are known to have built frames for painters from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

   The outer part of the frame is carved in high relief in a rustic (Arts and Crafts) manner. The frame carries text both carved into the frame proper and in the form of two annotated, gilded panels attached to the surface.

There has been some debate about whether Rossetti or a later owner designed or had this frame made.

   The discovery of the Foord label through infra-red imaging, gives some indication about the origins.

   The 90 Wardour St. address dates from 1843-1878 which sits well with the date of the work giving credibility to the gilded flat at least being contemporary with the artwork.

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