Description
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI Autograph Signature on cheque.
English painter and poet. A founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Autograph signature "D.G. Rossetti" on cheque for £50 drawn on the Chancery Lane Branch of the Union Bank of London. Dated in his hand 3rd November 1879 and with the payee's name given as "Self". With impressed Revenue blind stamp for 1d.
With cancel lines and the usual Bank perforations which touch the signature and with part of an old album leaf adhering to the left edge of verso. Some light creasing and small edge tears and chips. All else VG.
The cheque dates from the sad later years of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He had moved out of Kelmscott following the uncomfortable menage with William Morris and his wife, Jane with whom he had formed a romantic attachment. In 1879 he was living as a semi-recluse in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. He had fallen into a morbid state, darkened by his addiction to the drug chloral hydrate and was suffering from increasing mental instability. It appears from this cheque that he had drawn £50 in cash from his bank in Chancery Lane. A considerable sum in 1879.
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