Water Willow (Rossetti) Water Willow (Rossetti) Water Willow is an 1871 oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It depicts Jane Morris in the river landscape near Kelmscott Manor, with the manor in the left background and Kelmscott Church below the hill to the right. In May 1871, William Morris rented Kelmscott Manor, a 17th-century limestone manor house along the Thames near Kelmscott in Oxfordshire, to be a summer escape from London. Rossetti shared the lease, but the house soon became a retreat for Rossetti and Morris's wife Jane to have a long-lasting and complicated liaison. The two spent an idyllic summer there, with
Maria Francesca Rossetti her about her plain appearance, nicknaming her 'Moony' for her rounded face. Maria never married. She was a friend of John Ruskin, having visited his home at Denmark Hill, and at 28 she developed romantic feelings for him after his marriage was annulled. Maria died of ovarian cancer in 1876, despite drawn-out treatments to try to drain the tumour. She was buried in the convent plot at Brompton Cemetery. Maria Francesca Rossetti Maria Francesca Rossetti (17 February 1827 – 24 November 1876) was an English author and nun. She was the sister of artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti as well as