One of the last works he did before his misfortune, and the last picture for which his wife sat to him, was the water-colour of "St. George and the Princess Sabra." For sometime after the blow of his wife's death he was idle. The first things he did after his recovery was a crayon portrait of his mother (1862) followed by "The Girl at a Lattice," "Joan of Arc," and a replica of his early "Paolo and Francesca." [Illustration: PLATE VI.--THE BORGIA FAMILY From the water-colour painted in 1873 and lately purchased by the South Kensington Museum Rossetti first painted this subject in 1851--a smaller size 9½ by 10 in. It is one of the richest of his small compositions.] The celebrated picture of "Beata Beatrix," now in the Tate Gallery is dated 1863, but was finished later, being only partly painted in that year. In Rossetti's own words the following is a description of the picture: "The picture illustrates the _Vita Nuova_, embodying symbolically the death of Beatrice as treated in that work. The picture is not intended at all to represent death, but to render it under the semblance of a trance in which Beatrice, seated at a balcony overlooking the city, is suddenly rapt from earth to heaven...." The whole strikes a sombre note apart from its symbolic representation through its delicious purple harmony. The city in the sunset light in the distance, supposed to be Florence, is very like London in atmospheric effect. Beatrice is seen sitting at the balcony against the sunset background, with the light playing round her golden auburn hair, in fashion suggesting an aureole. She is dressed in green with dull purple sleeves. A bright red bird holding in its beak a dim purple poppy, emblem of death, is flying towards her. In the misty distance the figures of Dante and Love are watching her. Rossetti painted in 1872 a replica of that picture, adding to the main subject the meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise, with maidens bearing instruments of music. He was rather reluctant to send out that replica, but the unwillingness was overcome. He painted several others, none of them being equal in quality to the original. In 1863 Rossetti painted an oil picture called "Helen of Troy," and the last of the St. George subjects, representing St. George killing the dragon, which is a water-colour version of the stained-glass series. Then come three small subjects, "Belcolore," a girl in a circular frame biting a rosebud. Of this there is a red chalk study and a water-colour version, "Brimfull," a water-colour showing a lady stooping to sip from a full glass, and a picture called "A Lady in Yellow." Rossetti now gave up painting those quaint little romantic subjects so intense in literary feeling and dramatic expression, and devoted himself to large single figures upon a background of rich accessories.