Rossetti’s painting depicts a scene in Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova. The original passage describes a dream in which Dante is led to the deathbed of Beatrice Portinari, the object of his unrequited love:

“Then Love said: ‘Now shall all things be made clear:

    Come and behold our lady where she lies.’

These 'wildering fantasies

    Then carried me to see my lady dead.

Even as I there was led,

Her ladies with a veil were covering her

    And with her was such very humbleness

    That she appeared to say, ‘I am at peace.’”

In the painting, the winged figure of Love dressed in red is holding Dante’s left hand and leading him to Beatrice who is dying on a bed. Two attending maids are lowering a veil onto her body. On the right above the spiral staircase is a view of Florence, the hometown of Dante and Beatrice

Many articles have been written about the symbols in this painting. The poppies scattered on the floor represent both sleep (because the opium extracted from them is a sedative) and death (from the red poppy’s blood-like color). The green clothes of Beatrice’s attendants signify hope, as the color is associated with springtime and rebirth. And the blossoms held by the winged angel and strewn on the purple fabric above Beatrice suggest purity