Which is your favourite Pre-Raphaelite?

Admit it.  Everyone's got one.  I have two.  My favourite Pre-Raphaelite painting is 'The Boyhood of Raleigh' by John Everett Millais because my grandmother had a big print of it on her living room wall and I always loved it as a child.  Not surprisingly I suppose, the image of the storyteller had great appeal for me and I have always loved anything to do with the sea.  Indeed, the picture had such a profound influence on me it even makes a cameo appearance in my comedy 'Mrs Potter's Portrait'. 

 

The other painting I am very fond of is by Irish society painter Daniel McAlise, who was a great friend of Charles Dickens.  It's his illustration of the poem by John Keats 'The Eve of St Agnes'.  The colours are simply stunning. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as they styled themselves, rebelled against the art establishment of the mid 19th century and took their inspiration from early Renaissance painting creating the first consciously-formed art 'school'.

If you can't make up your mind there is a new exhibition on at Tate Britain, Millbank, London called ' 'Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant Garde'.  The exhibition opened on 12th September 2012 and will run until 13 January 2013.  Works exhibited include Dante Gabriel Rosetti's The Beloved ('The Bride') of 1865-6 recently acquired for the gallery by the Art Fund as one of over 150 works in different media including painting, sculpture, photography and applied arts. 

 

I have visited Tate Britain many times to view their fine collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings but I am looking forward to seeing a couple of rarely seen masterpieces included in the exhibition - Ford Madox Ford's famous painting Work (1852-65) (the father of  Ford Madox Brown author of Parade's End) and a couple of paintings by John Everett Millais I haven't seen before - Ferdinand lured by Ariel (1849-50), a scene from Shakespeare's play 'The Tempest' and A Huguenot, on St Bartholomew's Day, refusing to shield himself from danger by wearing the Roman Catholic Badge 1851-2.  I am also looking forward to seeing the 1858 wardrobe designed by Philip Webb and painted by Edward Burne-Jones on the theme of The Prioress's Tale (from Chaucer).

Tickets are £14 but concessions are available and if I hold on until November I will be eligible! Details can be found on the gallery's website at http://www.tate.org.uk/what's-on/tate-britain/exhibition/pre-raphaelites-victorian-avant-garde