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D. G. Rossetti, (left) King Arthur and the Weeping Queens and (right) St. Cecelia, 1857, engr. Dalziel Brothers, wood engraving, 3.6 x 4.2 in and 4.2 x 3.6 in.

In 1857 Dante Rossetti created four designs for illustrations to be included in Edward Moxon’s collection of Tennyson’s poetry, which also included illustrations done by many other members of the PRB. Two of these engravings, titled King Arthur and the Weeping Queens and St. Cecelia, illustrate Tennyson’s The Palace of Art, a poem that expresses the spiritual despair of the Soul who isolates herself in her arts and can only be cured by leaving the palace of art for a cottage among men. In the case of all of these illustrations, Rossetti drew his designs straight onto the blocks of wood, thus the actual drawings were destroyed when carved (Ironside 33). Rossetti felt that the engravers who actually reproduced his works did not do them justice, even the prominent Dalziel brothers. However both illustrations still demonstrate Rossetti’s interpretive creativity in their design.[here]