ABSTRACT
In his life and in his art, Dante Gabriel Rossetti had an intense relationship with material things, a relationship that was both like and unlike that of other Victorian householders and other Victorian artists. This chapter investigates that relationship and looks at the things Rossetti gathered around himself at Tudor House, his home in Chelsea. It considers the 'accessories' in his artwork, creating an inventory of specific items in paintings and drawings and attempting to identify originals of some virtual objects. In 1862 Rossetti assumed the lease of 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea Nymph, and turned, as Elizabeth Helsinger has observed, to 'the task that was to absorb much of his time and money: furnishing and decorating the large house.' Many of the accessories in his works were in fact drawn not from life but from the work of other artists, in particular those of northern Renaissance masters Albrecht Durer and Jan Van Eyck.
