WILLIAM BELL SCOTT (BRITISH, 1811-1890)

A poet and painter, William Bell Scott moved from his native Edinburgh to London in 1837, and his first Royal Academy exhibit was in 1842. By 1846, when the present drawing was made, he was closely associated with the nascent Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, with his poems inspiring Dante Gabriel Rossetti and appearing in The Germ. This drawing has previously been identified as Laura Alma-Tadema (née Epps), but she was not born until 1852.