Rossetti was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a rebellious band of London artists with a rogue reputation. Charles Dickens wrote of them in The Times: "We cannot censure at present as amply or as strongly as we desire to do, that strange disorder of the mind or the eyes which continues to rage with unabated absurdity among a class of juvenile artists who style themselves P.R.B."

In the story... From the time he first meets her, Dante sees in Diana the acme of Pre-Raphaelite beauty and wants desperately to paint her. His interest in her is something more than artistic: he insists that she is his Beatrice, the woman he has waited for all his life, the one who will lead him to ultimate bliss. Convinced he's a madman, Diana spends the story trying to elude him. She has to always be on the watch for him when in London.