Dante Gabriel Rossetti | Joan of Arc, 1882

Joan of Arc is the last painting upon which Rossetti worked, being finished within a few days of his death on 9 April 1882.

"Joan of Arc" is currently on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.

Rossetti was working on this painting while staying at a friend’s house at Birchington-on-Sea in an attempt to combat his declining health.

He passed away just a few days after completing it at just 53 years old.

It was found simply sitting on his easel.

This piece is based on a watercolor that he made almost twenty years prior.

Rossetti used Jane Morris, the artist, William Morris‘s wife, as his model for this piece.

This word had Merlin said from of old:-

That out of the Oak Tree Shade,

In the day of France's direst dule,

God's hand should send a Maid.

And where Domremy, by Burgundy,

Sits crowned with its oakenshaw,

Even there Joan d'Arc, the Maid of God's Ark,

The light of the day first saw.

Where spirits go, what man may know?

Yet this may of man be said:

That, when Time is o'er and all hath suffic'd,

Shall the world's chief Christ-fire rise to Christ

From the ashes of Joan the Maid.

from Rossetti's notebook of 1879-1880