Jan Marsh is considered to be an expert in her research of the Pre-Raphaelites. This is an incredibly well written and beautiful book.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began as a small group of artists who took the art world by storm in their unique subject matter and style.

Stoic, staid and rigid Victorian society did not quite know how to handle three men who began the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and turned pre-conceived notions of beauty upside down. United in youth, talent and idealism, they created a movement representing incredible beauty.

Using models whom Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holden Hunt and John Everett Millais deemed "Stunners", at a time when modeling for artists was a step above prostitution, the choice to sit for the artists was risky for some. While some of the women were sisters, wives or daughters, others, such as Lizzie Siddal were of the poorer class.

Lizzie, who was the model of perhaps the most famous pre-raphaelite painting -- John Everett Millais' Opehlia, worked in a hat shop

Fanny Corthforth, the model for Dante Gabriel Rossetti's paintings
Fazio's Mistress and Bocca Baciata, was a prostitute.

William Holden Hunt's painting The Awakening Conscience, included Annie Miller as the model. Enamored by Annie, Hunt rescued her from life on the street and tried to school her in the ways of "respectable women."

The members of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood were obsessed with the subject mater of the fallen woman. Depicting the moment of the kept woman's remorse, Hunt's painting was a bold statement at a time when cherubs and angels were the theme of art.

I highly recommend this book to those interested in this incredible art. ( )