Astarte Syriaca by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) (original) (raw)

Astarte Syriaca

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

1877

Oil on canvas

H 185 x W 109 cm

Manchester Art Gallery

1891.5; purchased from Mr Clarence E. Fry, 1891

As the comment on Art UK explains, "Astarte was the ancient Syrian goddess of love, more malign than Venus. Her features are based on those of Jane Morris, with whom Rossetti was obsessively in love." The torch-bearers either side of her gaze raptly upwards as the globes of sun and moon overlap the central, crowning star of Venus.

Image acquisition and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Image released on Art UK under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND).

Related Material

• Astarte Syriaca: The Epitome of the Rossettian Pre-Raphaelite Love Goddess
• The Rossettian Dream
• Sarah Doyle's poem, "Impressions of Jane"