Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/50

 George and the Dragon story—first, as St. George himself in the act of slaying the monster, and next in the final scene, where he enters triumphantly into the city with the Princess, as her deliverer, the dragon's head being borne in front of the procession as a trophy of his prowess. The cartoons of this romance were framed and used to hang from the staircase wall, but three of them having been removed and turned into water-colours—The Casting Lots for the Victim, The Slaying of the Dragon, and the Triumphant Entry—the rest were taken down and given away or lost.

Sketches for the wings of the altar piece of Llandaff Cathedral were also noticeable works. The subjects were David as shepherd for the one, and David as Psalmist and King, for the other. Rossetti always spoke very slightingly of this triptych to me, and considered it as a work that he would rather not discuss. But it surprised me by its originality and breadth of treatment when it made its appearance after his death in the exhibition of his collected works held at Burlington House. In execution it was by no means so weak as he had always led me to believe.65

Passing through a dark part of a back hall, my foot caught the corner of a picture stacked with others against the wall. I picked it up and found it to be a photograph. Seeing me looking at this, Rossetti told me it was taken from the first picture he had ever painted in oils, which was exhibited in the Hyde Park Gallery, instituted by