Christina Rossetti’s words will be on the lips of millions this Christmas though perhaps few will realise it. But she wasn’t just a great poet; she was also the author of many bestselling works of biblical exegesis – and, as a new book reveals, she turned her hand to the visual arts too

In 1850, Victorian society was scandalised by a painting of the Annunciation. Dante Gabriel Rossetti had produced Ecce Ancilla Domini! (“Behold the handmaiden of the Lord!”), showing a timorous Mary shrinking back against her bed as the Angel Gabriel urges her, according to Luke’s gospel, “Do not be afraid.”

Mark Byford, author of The Annunciation: A Pilgrim’s Quest, says Annunciation scenes were traditionally more modest, but “this painting is very different”. He explains why: “Mary’s nightgown, the bed sheet, the angel’s cloak and the walls and tiles are all painted in brilliant white, as if to emphasise her innocence and purity. A wingless angel Gabriel holds what art commentators often describe as a ‘phallic-shaped’ lily stem diagonally placed in the direction of her womb. A long slit in the side of his white garment reveals the angel to be naked … The perturbed eyes of Mary are transfixed on the lily stem.”

Central to this challenge to convention was Christina Rossetti, who, not for the first time, acted as her brother’s model for the figure of Mary. Today, Rossetti is rated as one of the greatest Victorian poets and is arguably even more famous than her Pre-Raphaelite painter brother, not least for her poetic creation about the Nativity, the promise of that moment depicted in Dante Gabriel’s painting. For Christina is the author of that essential Christmas carol “In The Bleak Midwinter”, put to music by both Gustav Holst and Harold Darke.