2016

80″ round sunburst concertina separated with pearls into, 24, 2 3/8″ high pages. Pigment printed on Katie MacGregor’s handmade paper and housed in a vintage silk covered metal box 7″ in diameter by 2 3/8″ deep. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of 44 love sonnets, chronicling the period leading up to her 1846 marriage to poet Robert Browning. One of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era, Elizabeth was an invalid and found it difficult to believe that Browning, who called her “my little Portuguese”, was truly in love with her. These sonnets explore that concern. Sonnet number 43, which begins “How do I love thee?”, is perhaps the most famous and is the subject of this book / box.