In 1865 we find Rossetti writing to the “Athenæum” to correct a statement which seems to have been made to the effect that he, known chiefly as a water-colour painter, was now attempting a return to oils. The artist protested that he was then, and always had been, an oil- painter; and indeed, as we have seen, he was just now at his zenith of power in that medium, though the contrary impression made on the public is easily explicable in the light of his water-colour work of the previous decade, and of the Russell Place Exhibition of 1856. By this time the irreparable loss of the one loved model of his early prime was in some degree mitigated, from the artistic side, by the good fortune which secured for him henceforward some of the most beautiful sitters known to the artistic world of the day; women of high culture and distinction, who added to their willing service in the studio the grace of personal friendship and, in several instances, of patronage of the most sympathetic kind. The austere and robust beauty of Miss Herbert, the accomplished actress to whom he was introduced in 1859, lay, as has been already said, entirely apart from his most cherished ideals, and seldom appears in his symbolic paintings. But Mrs. Aldham Heaton, a frequent and valued purchaser, and a lady of presence more congruous with his favourite type, sat for what appears to have been a second “Regina Cordium” in 1861; while in 1864 was commenced his long and most artistically fruitful acquaintance with Miss Wilding, the beautiful girl who served as the model for “Sybilla Palmifera,” “La Ghirlandata,” “Dis Manibus,” “Veronica Veronese,” “The Sea-Spell,” and several others of his most delicate and spiritual faces, including a third “Regina Cordium” in 1866. Miss Spartali, afterwards Mrs. Stillman, was also a favourite model for some years, and sat for “Fiametta” (distinct from “A Vision of Fiametta” in 1878), and for the lady on the right of the funeral couch in “Dante’s Dream,”—a work which remained on hand throughout this period. Apart from the models of his principal pictures, Rossetti painted at different times a goodly number of female portraits, commencing the list of sitters with his mother and younger sister (the elder died at a somewhat early age), and including Lady Mount Temple, who became, with her husband, one of the few intimate friends of his seclusion in later years, Miss Alice Boyd, the kindly hostess of some of his happiest visits to Scotland, yet to be recorded, Mrs. William Morris and her daughters—among them Miss May Morris, now Mrs. Halliday Sparling, who also appears in the “Rosa Triplex” of 1869 and 1874, Mrs. Burne-Jones, Mrs. Dalrymple, Mrs. H.T. Wells, Mrs. Leathart, Mrs. Lushington, Mrs. Virtue Tebbs, Mrs. C. A. Howell, Mrs. Coronio, Miss Heaton, Miss Williams, Miss Kingdon, the Misses Cassavetti, Miss Baring, and Mrs. Banks.