ABSTRACT
In June 1863 John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were photographed together in Rossetti's garden. Two versions of the picture appear in contem porary collections - one shows the two men, arm in arm (Fig. 3.1); the other includes Rossetti's friend William Bell Scott standing a bit aside, to Ruskin's right (Fig. 3.2). In the first version a triple portrait has been cropped to neatly cut Scott out of the image but for one intrusive but unidentified arm and trousered leg.1 Both versions of the photograph draw attention to the role of friendship in the mystique or meaning of Pre-Raphaelitism. Yet both pictures show Ruskin and Rossetti as a singularly unjoyful couple, even though Vic torians faced the photographer with greater solemnity than we do. In either version, the photograph presents a distinctly troubled image of Pre-Raphaelite friendships.
