In 1866, the year in which the _Beloved_ was finished, Rossetti started upon a second great picture of the same type, the _Monna Vanna_, a three-quarter length figure draped in magnificent gold and white brocade, and toying with a large fan. This was commissioned by Mr. Rae, as was also _Sibylla Palmifera_, the third of the series, begun about the same time but not completed until 1870. Rossetti's sonnet entitled "Soul's Beauty" describes the subject--a Sibyl seated on a throne and bearing a branch of palm. The record of 1866 closes with an oil portrait of the painter's mother, towards whom at all periods of his life his devotion was exemplary; a large crayon drawing of Christina Rossetti, with her thoughtful face resting on her hands; and two designs for her second volume of poems, "The Prince's Progress." In 1867 Rossetti painted the oil _Christmas Carol_ for Mr. Rae, an entirely different subject from the early water-colour. This is a half-length figure of a girl, draped in a gold and purple robe of Eastern stuff, and playing upon a species of lute. Two small but pretty pictures of the same date are _Joli Cœur_ and _Monna Rosa_. The first represents a coy-looking maiden fingering her necklace, whilst _Monna Rosa_ is chiefly a study in beautiful colour, representing a lady in a dress of pale emerald green, with golden fruit worked upon it, plucking a rose from a tree planted in a blue jar. The next item of 1867 is the exquisite _Loving Cup_. The subject is a lady raising a golden cup to her lips, and standing against a background of fair embroidered linen, surmounted by a row of heavy brazen plates. The year 1868 was cut into by Rossetti's breakdown in health and sudden anxiety about his eyesight. Nevertheless, he painted the portrait of Mrs. William Morris, in a blue dress, seated at a table before a glass of flowers, which many competent judges regard as one of his very finest pictures, and which was the prelude to that long series of noble canvases by which he has become best known to the public. Mrs. Morris has lent her portrait to the National Gallery, where it hangs (at Millbank) beside the _Ecce Ancilla_ and the _Beata Beatrix_. Other productions of the same year, which closes the period of Rossetti's best work, were _Bionda del Balcone_; _Aurea Catena_, a fine drawing of Mrs. Morris; two studies for a future picture, _La Pia_, and some small replicas of no particular importance.