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King's was home to two of the most important figures in the movement:
William Dyce and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Dyce (1806-1864) was a
Scottish painter and Royal Academician and Professor of Fine Arts
at King's College from 1844. His youthful career as a portraitist
was spent in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, London and Rome, and he was an
early, if not the earliest exponent, of what became the Pre-Raphaelite
style. Dyce achieved some critical acclaim with his A Virgin
and Child, The Infant Hercules strangling the Serpents
and Bacchus nursed by the Nymphs of Nysa. His homage to Titian
is evident in one of his finest works, Titian's First Essay in
Colour. Dyce was also a leading advocate of the application
of art and design to manufacture and fine arts generally, in particular
stained glass work, excellent examples of which are found in Ely
Cathedral and in Alnwick. Dyce was central to the reform of British
art education during the 1840s, examining the continental example
on a tour sponsored by the Board of Trade. He was a juror at the
Royal Exhibition in 1851 and painted frescoes on the theme of King
Arthur for the new Palace of Westminster. Dyce's talents extended
to early experiments into electro-magnetism and the magnetic fields
associated with living organisms, the composition of church music
and even the redesign of the florin or two shilling piece. He died
in 1864.
The poet and painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882, was joint
founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and a pupil at King's
College School between 1837 and 1841. His father, Gabriele Rossetti,
was Professor of Italian at King's during this period.
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