The Pre-Raphaelites lived in a period of intense change. At their founding in 1848, England was a global superpower. Queen Victoria was 29 years old and had been on the throne for 11 years (she would reign for another 53 years). Revolution and unrest were sweeping Europe, and in England the working class demonstrated for political reform. More broadly, over the course of their careers, members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood witnessed both the promise and the perils of industrialized society.

In response to their increasingly modernizing world—and to counter what they viewed as the erosion of timeless ideals, such as truth and beauty, in art by the followers of Raphael (the “Raphaelites”)—the PRB studied art from the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. This exhibition juxtaposes for the first time works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with those by old masters such as Jan van Eyck and Sandro Botticelli. Viewers can trace the lessons the Brotherhood learned from their predecessors, from painting techniques to the use of symbolism.

To rage against the tyranny of academic refinement, the PRB proposed to follow John Ruskin’s call to go to nature and rejoice in its truth. Hunt later recounted that “the first principle of Pre-Raphaelitism was to eschew all that was conventional in contemporary art.” Rossetti’s brother William, also a founding member, summarized their artistic intent as follows:

Inspired by Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem Mariana, which was based on a character in Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure, this work was exhibited by Millais at the Royal Academy in 1851, just one year after Tennyson became poet laureate. When it was first displayed, the work was accompanied by the following stanza:

In Anne, Viscountess Townsend, Later Marchioness Townshend, on view in the British gallery at the Legion of Honor, you can see why members of the PRB sarcastically referred to the artist as “Sir Sloshua.” To their eyes the brushstrokes lacked precision and the color palette was muted. The initial critical attacks against the PRB conformed to the prevailing tastes of the time and reprimanded the young collective for being too truthful in their choice of angular figures and their minute, naturalistic, details.

Although John Ruskin found the name of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to be “unfortunate and somewhat ludicrous,” he championed their efforts to break from the academy and provided the PRB with connections to collectors over their careers. In an early article he stated, “They know little of ancient paintings who suppose the works of these young artists to resemble them.” In short, viewers who saw the PRB as copying the old masters did not look close enough.

William Holman Hunt’s portrait of Henry Wentworth Monk exemplifies Ruskin’s critique. The artist’s exacting details and nuanced handling of light create the illusion of the past. However, Hunt has juxtaposed a volume of the New Testament with a copy of the London Times, emphatically placing the portrait within the Victorian era.

When the PRB formed, none of its founding members had yet traveled abroad. Rossetti and Hunt took their first study trip in 1849 to Paris and Bruges, where they made many discoveries of Northern art. The Brotherhood also amassed their knowledge of old masters by visiting the National Gallery, the British Museum, and private collections, including that of John Ruskin. Reflecting the nascent art market for Northern and early Italian art, some of the artists even collected their own works. Most notably, Rossetti purchased—for only 20 pounds—Botticelli’s Portrait of a Lady Known as Smeralda Bandinelli, which he closely studied and used for inspiration for his own allegorical portraits.

Medieval Art
300–1400

The PRB’s passion for the medieval period was fueled by Ruskin’s writings. He envisioned the Middle Ages as a time when art and life were interconnected, when craftsmen worked together to create art that conveyed truthful ideals, at once personally meaningful and socially beneficial. He believed returning to these principles was the only escape from brute capitalism and the toll it took on Britain’s social, cultural, spiritual, and environmental life.

Northern Renaissance Art
(Netherlandish and German)
1400–1500

In the work of Northern Renaissance artists, the Brotherhood admired the luminosity and durability of their oil technique as well as their incandescent colors, exacting detail, and the symbolic depiction of everyday objects. Van Eyck provided the greatest source of inspiration.

Early Italian Art
1400–1500

Early Italian artists such as Fra Angelico and Sandro Botticelli captivated the PRB with the sincerity of their painting style. They especially admired Botticelli for his close observation of nature. He also combined sacred and secular imagery, creating compositions that conveyed a sense of both pleasure and melancholy.

The Time of Raphael
1483–1520

In naming themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the young collective intended to reject not Raphael himself but rather the formulaic results of his many assistants and followers, the “Raphaelites.” According to the PRB these artists slavishly followed rules that resulted in contorted compositions that lacked originality.

High and Late Italian Renaissance Art
1500–1600

Although they scorned Raphael’s followers, later in their careers the PRB did study artists after Raphael whom they deemed to be fully original. Rossetti’s later works are heavily indebted to Venetian artists such as Titian, Paolo Veronese, and Palma Vecchio. Compositions by these painters share sumptuous textures, graceful bodies, and a scale of nearly life size.

To achieve the translation that they aspired to, Rossetti and other PRB artists did not slavishly replicate key parts of a single composition but rather assembled different elements to create their own original works. In Love and the Maiden, painted in 1877, Stanhope (who owned a villa outside Florence) boldly displays the lessons he learned through his exacting studies of Botticelli’s masterpieces, including The Birth of Venus and Primavera. The postures of the figures, the painstaking attention to nature, and allusions to ancient mythology create a strong link between the two artists. However, Stanhope refused to quote Botticelli exactly. His stylistic interweaving of Botticelli’s elements into his composition encourages the viewer to look more closely at both Stanhope’s work and that of the master he diligently studied.

For many of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood artists and their collectors, paintings alone could not evoke the past they wished to revive. They created domestic worlds infused with medieval-inspired furniture, books, wallpaper, stained-glass windows, and tapestries. At the height of the PRB’s popularity, the demand for domestic goods gave rise to an entire industry headed by William Morris and Edward-Burne Jones, both protégés of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Friends who met in college, Morris and Burne-Jones first collaborated on furniture designs. As their careers progressed, Morris dedicated himself to reviving lost trades. He passionately studied old-master tapestries and taught himself the high-warp technique, the method favored in medieval and Renaissance workshops.

In addition to his other acclaimed artistic pursuits, Burne-Jones studied illuminated manuscripts and French emblem books. Inspired by the latter, he created The Flower Book, which was published by the artist’s wife after his death. This volume included thirty-eight watercolors that evoke traditional floral names in ways that are sometimes recognizable and at other times obscure.