UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. SAN DIEGO 3 182202465 1853 < 3 182202465 1853 Social Sciences & Humanities Library University of California, San Diego Please Note: This item is subject to recall. Date Due OCT 071999 UCSD Lib. M THE NEW GALLERY EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF Sir Edward Burne-Jones 898-1899^,, THE NEW GALLERY Birectors* c. E. HALLE. | j. w. COMYNS CARR. Consulting Committee. L. ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. E. ONSLOW FORD, R.A. ALFRED GILBERT, R.A. H. A. GRUEBER, F.S.A. W. HOLMAN HUNT, R.W.S. J. W. NORTH, A.R.A. ALFRED PARSONS, A.R.A. C. H. READ, F.S.A. SIR W. B. RICHMOND, K.C.B.,R. A. E. R. ROBSON, F.S.A. ISIDORE SPIELMANN, F.S.A. G. F. WATTS, R.A. Brcbitect. E. R. ROBSON, F.S.A. Secretary. LEONARD C. LINDSAY, F.S.A. assistant Secretary Miss THOMAS. arrangement of tbe jSybibttion. SOUTH ROOM. PICTURES, CABINET SIZE, IN OIL AND WATER COLOUR. WEST ROOM. PICTURES OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD. NORTH ROOM. LATER PICTURES, INCLUDING "ARTHUR IN AVALON." CENTRAL HALL. DRAWINGS, DESIGNS AND TAPESTRY. BALCONY. DRAWINGS AND DESIGNS. PREFATORY NOTE. THE Directors and the Secretary of the New Gallery desire to tender their most grateful thanks to all those who have kindly lent their pictures for exhibition, thus enabling them to offer to the public the present collection of Sir Edward Burne-Jones's works, which with very few exceptions is a complete series of the artist's easel pictures. The Exhibition will be open from December 3ist, 1898, till April, 1899. A selection of Sir Edward Burne-Jones's drawings and studies is on view at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 17, Savile Row. Orders for admission can be obtained from members of the Club. For particulars apply to the Secretary of the New Gallery EDWARD BURNE-JONES " I THINK Morris's friendship began everything for me ; every- thing that I afterwards cared for ; we were freshmen together at Exeter. When I left Oxford I got to know Rossetti, whose friendship I sought and obtained. He is, you know, the most generous of men to the young : I couldn't bear with a young man's dreadful sensitiveness and conceit as he bore with mine. He taught me practically all I ever learnt ; afterwards I made a method for myself to suit my nature. He gave me courage to commit myself to imagination without shame, a thing both bad and good for me. It was Watts much later who compelled me to try and draw better. " I quarrel now with Morris about Art. He journeys to Iceland, and I to Italy, which is a symbol and I quarrel too with Rossetti. If I could travel backwards I think my heart's desire would take me to Florence in the time of Botticelli." So Burne- Jones wrote of himself more than six-and-twenty years ago. It chanced I had just then written a series of io EDWARD BURNE-JONES. papers on living English painters; and, with the thought of their republication, had asked him for some particulars of his earlier career. The scheme, I remember, was never carried into effect ; but his answer to my inquiry, from which I have drawn this interesting fragment of autobiography, served as the begin- ning of a long friendship that was interrupted only by death. In those boyish essays of mine there was, as I now see, not a little of that quality of youthful conceit that could never, I think, have entered very largely into his composition ; and if I recall them now with any sort of gratification, it is mainly because they included an enthusiastic appreciation of so much as was then known to me of the work of Rossetti and Burne- Jones. Of Rossetti's art this is not the time or the place to speak ; but when, a little later, I too came under the sway of his extraordinary personality, I could understand how deep may have been the debt of obligation that is here so generously acknowledged. For of all men I have ever known he was, I think, to the mind of youth the most encouraging, the most inspiring. So subtle and so strong was his intellectual sympathy that those who came within the sphere of its influence were constrained to give him of their best ; and there was cer- tainly no one in whose presence a youth, who was sincere, could dare to be so fearless in the confession of the most secret, the most sacred ambitions. Little wonder then that to the dream-fed soul of the younger EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 11 painter, whose art as yet lacked the means to fix in form and colour the thronging visions that must already have crowded his brain, the friendship of such a man must have seemed a priceless possession : and although, with the patient and gradual assertion of Burne-Jones's individuality, their ways in the world of Art divided, yet even in that later day each knew well how to measure the worth of the other. Of what was highest and noblest in the art of Rossetti, no praise ever outran the praise offered by Burne-Jones to the man he had sought and owned as his master ; and I can recall an evening in Cheyne Walk more than twenty years ago, when there fell from the lips of Rossetti the most generous tribute I have ever heard to the genius of the painter but lately passed away. " If, as I hold," he said, in those round and ringing tones that seemed at once to invite and to defy contradiction, " the noblest picture is a painted poem, then I say that in the whole history of Art there has never been a painter more greatly gifted than Burne- Jones, with the highest qualities of poetical invention." Here we have praise indeed ; but there is at least one living painter, he whose long life still keeps the stainless record of unswerving loyalty to a noble ideal ; to whom also Burne-Jones has here owned his indebtedness ; who would, I believe, accept and endorse even such a judgment as this. And if an artist's fame lives most sweetly, most securely, in the regard of his fellows, who could ask aught higher of the living or the dead 12 EDWARD BURNE-JONES. of our time, than that the award of Rossetti should be con- firmed and enforced by the painter of " Love and Death " ? " A picture is a painted poem." Upon that Rossetti never tired of insisting. " Those who deny it," he used to add in his vehement way, " are simply men who have no poetry in their composition." We know there are many who deny it : many indeed who think it savours of the rankest heresy ; for herein, as they would warn us, lurks the insidious poison of " the literary idea." Nor can such warning ever be without its uses. The literary idea, it must be owned, has often played sad havoc in the domain of art. Much both in painting and sculpture that the world has rightly forgotten, or would fain forget, found the source of its failure in misguided loyalty to a literary ideal ; much even that survives still claims a spurious dignity from its fortuitous attachment to an imaginative conception that had never been rightly subdued to the service of Art. But though the warning be timely, the definition which it confronts is not on that account to be lightly dismissed. It is true, as Rossetti stoutly maintained, and must ever remain true, of all men who have poetry in their nature. It was true, from the beginning of his career to its close, of the art of Burne- Jones. From The Merciful Knight to the unfinished Avalon^ wherein, as it would seem, he had designed to give us all that was most winning in the brightly-coloured dreams of youth, combined with all that was richest in the gathered resource of EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 13 maturity, his every picture was a painted poem. Nay, more, every drawing from his hand, every fragment of design, each patient study of leaf, or flower or drapery, has in it something of that imaginative impulse which controls and informs the completed work. I have lately been turning over the leaves of some of those countless books of studies he has left behind him, studies which prove with what untiring and ab- sorbing industry he approached every task he had set himself to accomplish. And yet, amongst them all, of mere studies there are none. Again and again he went back to nature, but ever under the compelling impulse of an idea ; always taking with him an integral part of what he came to capture. That unprejudiced inspection of the facts of nature which, in the preliminary stages of their work, may content those who are moved by a keener and colder spirit of scientific research, he had not the will, he had not the power, to make. For every force carries with it its own limitation ; nor would it ever have been his boast that nature owned no more than she was fain to yield to him. If, then, with unwearied application he was constantly re-seeking the support of nature, it was with a purpose so frankly confessed, that even in the presence of the model the sense of mere portraiture is already seen to be passing under the dominion of the idea. At their first en- counter the artist's invention asserts its authority over his subject ; and not all the allurements of individual face or form 1 4 EDWARD BURNE-JONES. which to men of a different temperament are often all-suffi- cing, could find or leave him unmindful of the single purpose that filled his mind and guided all the work of his hand. It is this which gives to the drawings of Burne- Jones their extraordinary charm and fascination. He who possesses one of these pencil studies has something more than a leaf torn from an artist's sketch-book. He has in the slightest of them a frag- ment that images the man: that is compact of all the qualities of his art; and that reveals his ideal as surely as it interprets the facts upon which he was immediately engaged. And yet we see in them how strenuously, how resolutely, he set himself to wring from nature the vindication of his own design. There is no realist of them all who looked more persistently at life, who spared himself so little where patient labour might serve to perfect what he had in his mind to do ; and if the treasure he bore away still left a rich store for others, it is because the house of beauty holds many mansions, and no man can hope to inhabit them all. "A picture is a painted poem." Like all definitions that pass the limits of barren negation, it contains only half a truth. Like most definitions forged by men of genius, it is chiefly valuable as a confession of faith. There is a long line of artists to whom, save in a forced and figurative sense, it has no kind of relevancy. And they boast a mighty company. Flanders and Spain serve under their banner. Rubens and EDWARD BURNE-JONES. Velasquez, Vandyck and Franz Hals, aye, and at no unworthy distance, our own Reynolds and Gainsborough, are to be counted among the leaders of their host. And long before the first of these men had arisen, the tradition they acknowledged had been firmly established. It was Venice that gave it birth. Venice, where not even the commanding influence of Man- tegna could hold back the flowing tide of naturalism that rose under the spell of Titian's genius. Out of his art, which con- tained them both, came those twin currents of portraiture and landscape that were destined to supply all that was vital in the after development of painting in Europe. All that was vital ; for though Religion and Allegory, History and Symbol, still played their formal part in many a grandiose and rhetorical design, these things were no longer of the essence of the achievement. To the painters who employed them, nature itself was already all-absorbing. 'The true poetry of their work, whatever other claims it may seem to advance, resides in the mastery of the craftsman ; it cannot be detached from the markings of the brush that give it life and being. To wring from nature its countless harmonies of tone and colour, to seize and interpret the endless subtleties of individual form and character, these are the ideals that have inspired and have satisfied many of the greatest painters the world has produced. Who then shall say that Art has need of any other, any wider ambition ? 16 EDWARD BURNE-JONES. And yet, as I have said, the house of beauty has so many mansions that no single ideal can furnish them all. Nature is prodigal to those who worship her ; there is fire for every altar truly raised in her service. And so it happened that while Venice was perfecting a tradition destined for many a generation to sway the schools of Northern Europe, there had risen and fallen at Florence a race of artists, such as the world had not seen before and may haply not see again, who had asked of Nature a different gift, and had won another reward. That imperishable series of " painted poems " which had been first lisped in the limpid accents of Giotto, had found their final utterance in the splendid dialect of Michael Angelo. In the years that intervened, many hands had tilled the field ; many a harvest had been gathered in ; but so rich had been the yield that the land perforce lay fallow at the last j and when Michael Angelo died Florence had nothing to bequeath that the temper of the time was fit to inherit. From that day almost to our own the ideal of the Florentine painters has slept the sleep of Arthur in Avalon. Those who from time to time have sought to recapture their secret have gone in their quest, no,t to the source, but to the sea. They have tried to begin where Lionardo, Raphael, and Michael Angelo left off : to repeat in poorer phrase what had been said once and for all in language that needed no enlargement, that would suffer no translation. They made the mistake of EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 17 thinking that the forms and modes of art are separable things, independent of its essence ; that the coinage moulded by the might of individual genius could be imported and adopted as common currency ; and so even the most gifted of them carried away only the last faltering message of a style already waning and outworn. To look only to the painters of our own land, we know well what disaster waited upon men like Barry, Fuseli and Haydon in their hapless endeavours to recover the graces of the grand style ; and even Reynolds, though he never wearied in praise of Michael Angelo, was drawn by a surer instinct as to his own powers into a field of Art that owed nothing to the great Florentine. A truer per- ception of what was needed, and of what was possible, in order to revive a feeling for the almost forgotten art of design came in a later time, and was due, as I have always thought, mainly to the initiative of Rossetti. Not because he stood alone in the demand for a more searching veracity of interpretation ; that was also the urgent cry of men whose native gifts were widely different from his, men like the young Millais, who owned and paid only a passing al- legiance to the purely poetic impulse which youth grants to all, and age saves only for a few, and then sped onwards to claim the rich inheritance that awaited him in quite another world of Art. But if this new worship of nature was indeed at the time a passion common to them all, yet amongst them i8 EDWARD BURNE-JONES. all Rossetti stands pre-eminent, if not absolutely alone in his endeavour to rescue from the traditions of the past, and to refashion according to present needs, a language that might aptly render the visions of legend and romance. And this in a larger and wider sense became afterwards the mission of Burne-Jones. This was his life work, to find fitting utterance in line and colour for dreams of beauty that in England at least had till now been shaped only in verse. And to accomplish his task he was driven, as he has said, to make a method to suit his own nature. The surviving traditions of style could avail him little, for he already possessed by right of birth a secret long lost to them. With him there never was any question of grafting the perfected flower of one art upon the barren stem of another. There, and there only, lurks the peril of the literary idea. But it could have had no terrors for him, who from the outset of his career submitted himself, as by instinct, to the essential conditions of the medium in which he worked, moving easily in those shackles which make of every art either an empire or a prison. Of the visions that came to him he took only what was his by right, leaving untouched and unspoiled all that the workers in another realm might justly claim as theirs. Every thought, every symbol, as it passed the threshold of his imagination, struck itself into form j he saw life and beauty in no other way. There was no laboured process of translation, for his EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 19 spirit lived in the language of design ; but labour there must have been, and, as we know, there was, in perfecting an instru- ment that had been so long disused. To be sure of his way he had to seek again the path where it had been first marked out by men of like ambitions to his own ; and it was by innate kinship of ideas, not by any forced affectation of archaic form that at the outset of his career he found himself following in the footsteps of the painters of an earlier day. " If I could travel backwards I think my heart's desire would take me to Florence in the time of Botticelli." It was by no accident that he chose this one name among many, for of all the painters of his school Botticelli's art asserts the closest, the most affectionate attachment to the ideas which gave it birth. Others could be cited whose work bears the stamp of a deeper religious conviction : others again whose technical mastery was more complete, who could boast a readier command of the mere graces of decoration. But he was the poet of them all. For him, more than for all the rest of his fellows, the beauty of the chosen legend exercised the most constant, the most supreme authority. It was the source of his invention and the dominating influence which guided every subtle detail of his design. It made his art, as it formed and controlled all the processes of his art, leaving the in- delible record of individual and personal feeling upon the delicate beauty of every face that he pressed into its service. B 20 EDWARD BURNE-JONES. It is not wonderful then that the poet-painter of our day should have recognised with almost passionate sympathy the genius of the earlier master, or that he should sometimes have travelled backwards in spirit to the city wherein he dwelt ; and if that longer journey upon which he has now set forth should lead him not to Florence, who is there who shall declare that he may not have met with Botticelli by the way ? It is no part of my present purpose to offer any laboured vindication of the art of Burne-Jones. That is not needed now. The generous appreciation of a wider circle has long ago overtaken the praise of those who first gave him welcome ; and for others who have yet to learn the secret of his influence, the fruit of his life's labour is here to speak for itself. But in the presence of work that is clearly marked off from so much else produced in our time, it may be well to ask ourselves what are the qualities we have a right to demand, what, on the other hand, are the limitations we may fitly concede to a painter whose special ambition is so frankly avowed. For there is no individual and there is no school whose claims embrace all the secrets of nature, whose practice exhausts all the resources of art. To combine the design of Michael Angelo with the colouring of Titian was a task that lay not merely beyond the powers of a Tintoret. It is an achievement impossible in itself; and even could we suppose it possible, it would be destructive and disastrous. Titian had design, but its qualities EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 21 were of right and need subordinated to the dominant control of his colour ; Michael Angelo used colour, but it served only as the fitting complement of his design ; and although the result achieved by both has the ring of purest metal, there is no power on earth that can suffice to fuse the two. These two names, we may say, stand as the representatives of opposite ideals, which have been fixed and separated by laws that are elemental and enduring ; and if between these ideals, leaning on the one hand towards symbolism, on the other towards illusion, the pendulum of art is for ever swaying, this at least we know, that it can never halt midway. And between these ideals Burne-Jones made no hesitating choice. For him, from the outset of his career, design was all in all, and the forms and colours of the real world were in their essence only so many symbols that he employed for the ex- pression of an idea. His chosen types of face and form are fashioned and subdued to bear the message of his own in- dividuality. No art was ever more personal in its aim, or, to borrow an image of literature, more lyrical in its direction. The scheme in which he chose to work did not admit of wide variety of characterisation, but for what is lacking here we have, by way of compensation, a certainty, an intensity of vision that supplies its own saving grace of vitality. There is nothing of cold abstraction or formal classicism. Though his art affects no mere transcript of nature, and can boast not all B 2 22 EDWARD BVRNE-JONES. the allurements of nature, yet nature follows close at its heels; and if the beauty he presents has been formed to inhabit a world of its own, remote from our actual world, we are conscious none the less that he had fortified himself at every step by reference to so much of life as he had the power or the will to use. And again, we may see that while his mind was bent upon the poetic beauty of Romantic legend, he never suffered himself to depend upon that merely scenic quality that seeks for mystery in vague suggestion or uncertain definition. His design, whatever the theme upon which it is engaged, has the simplicity, the directness of conviction. He needs no rhetoric to enforce his idea. All that he sees is clearly and sharply seen ; with something of a child's wondering vision, with something also of the unsuspecting faith and fearless familiarity of a child. And, as with his design, so also with his colour. He worked- in both at a measured distance from reality, never passing beyond the limits he had assigned to himself, and using only so much of illusion as seemed needful for the illustration of his idea. The accidents of light and shade, with their infinite varieties of tint and tone, which yield a special charm to work differently inspired, were not of his seeking. He would indeed, on occasion, so narrow his palette as to give to the result little more than the effect of sculptured relief: he could equally, when so minded, range and order upon his can- EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 23 vas an assemblage of the most brilliant hues that nature offers. But in either case he employed what he had chosen always with a specific purpose, for the enrichment of his design, not for any mere triumph of imitation. Few will deny to the painter of the Chant (T Amour and Laus Generis the native gift of a colourist, but we may recognise in both these examples, and, indeed, in all he has left us, that the painter disposes his colours as a jeweller uses his gems. They are locked and guarded in the golden tracery that surrounds and combines them. And they may not over-run their setting, for to him, as to all whose genius is governed by the spirit of design, the setting is even more precious than the stone. These qualities of Burne-Jones's art are not peculiar to him. They find their warrant, as we have seen, in all the work of that earlier school to which he loved to own his obligation. But they were strange to the time in which he first appeared ; and to their presence, I think, must be ascribed no small part of the hostility he then encountered. Something, no doubt, was due to the immaturity of resource which marked his earlier efforts. And he knew that. At a time when his imagination had already ripened, he was but poorly equipped in a purely technical sense ; and although there is no education so rapid as that which genius bestows upon itself, it was long before his hand could keep pace with the pressing demands of the ideas that called for interpretation. But apart from mere technical 24 EDW4RD BURNE-JONES. failure, there was in his own individuality, and still more in the means which he recognised as the only means that could rightly serve him, not a little that was sure of protest from a generation to whom both were unfamiliar. This also he well knew : and I -think it was the clear perception of it which gave him patience and courage to press forward to the goal. And there were times when he had need of both. The critics who saw in his earlier efforts only the signs of affectation, greeted him with ridicule. We are reported a grave nation, but laughter is a safe refuge for dulness that does not understand ; and as there were few of the comic spirits then engaged upon art criticism who had the faintest apprehension of the ideal which inspired his art, they found in it only a theme for the exercise of a some- what rough and boisterous humour. But they never moved him from his purpose ; never, I think, even provoked in him any strong feeling of resentment. His nature was too gentle for that, his strength of conviction too deep and too secure. No one ever possessed a larger quality of personal sympathy j no one, it might seem, was on that account so much ex- posed to the influence of others. And in a sense this was so. In the lighter traffic of life his spirit flew to the mood of the hour. His appreciation was so quick, his power of identifying himself with the thoughts and feelings of others so ready and so real that he seemed at such moments to have no care to EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 25 assert his own personality. Nor had he ; for of all men he was surely the most indifferent to those petty dues that great- ness sometimes loves to exact. That was not the sort of homage he had any desire to win ; and as he put forward no such poor claim on his own behalf, his keen sense of humour made him quick to detect in others the presence or assump- tion of mere parochial dignity. Of that he was always intolerant ; indeed, I think there was scarcely any other human failing for which he could not find some measure of sympathy. But although in the free converse of friends his spirit passed swiftly and easily from the gravest to the lightest themes, anxious, as it would seem, rather to leap with the lead of others than to assert his own individuality, it was easy to see how firmly, how resolutely, he refused all concession in matters that concerned the deeper convictions of his life. To touch him there was to touch a rock. Behind the affectionate gentleness of his nature, that was accessible to every winning influence, lay a faith that nothing could shake or weaken. It was never obtruded, but it lay ready for all who cared to make trial of it. In its service he was prepared to make all sacrifice of time and strength and labour. His friends claimed much of him, and he yielded much ; generous both in act and thought, there was probably no man of such concentrated purpose who ever placed himself so freely at the service of those he loved ; but there was no friend of 26 EDWARD BURNE-JONES. them all who could boast of having won any particle of the allegiance that the artist owed to his art. That was a world in which he dwelt alone, from which he rigorously excluded all thoughts save those that were born of his task ; and though every artist has need of encouragement, and he certainly loved it not less than others, yet such was the tenacity of his purpose, such a fund of obstinate persistence lay at the root of a nature that was in many ways soft and yielding, that even without it I think he would have laboured on patiently to the end. A mind so constituted was therefore little likely to yield to ridicule. Such attacks as he had to endure may have wounded, but they did not weaken his spirit ; and with a playful humour that would have surprised his censors, he would sometimes affect to join the ranks of his assailants, and wage a mock warfare upon his own ideals. I have in my possession a delightful drawing of his which is supposed to represent a determination to introduce into his design a type of beauty that was more acceptable to the temper of his time. He had been diligently studying, as he assured me, the style and method of the great Flemish masters, and he sent me as earnest of his new resolve a charming design of Susanna and the Elders" after the manner of Rubens." On another occasion he wrote to me that he felt he had striven too long to stem the tide of popular taste, that he was determined now to make a fresh EDWARD SURNE-JONES. 27 departure, and that with this view he had projected a series of pictures which were to be called the "Homes of England." He enclosed for my sympathetic criticism the design for the first of the series. It was indeed a masterpiece. Upon a Victorian sofa, whose every hideous and bulging curve was outlined with the kind of intimate knowledge that is born only of love or of detestation, lay stretched, in ster- torous slumber, the monstrous form of some unchastened hero of finance. A blazing solitaire stud shone as a beacon in a trackless field of shirt-front : while from his puffy hand the sheets of a great daily journal had fallen fluttering to the floor. There were others of the series, but none I think which imaged with happier humour that masculine type, whose sympathies at the time he was so often charged with neglecting. For it must not be forgotten that when ridicule had done its work, Burne- Jones was very seriously taken to task by " the apostles of the robust." There are men so constituted that all delicate beauty seems to move them to resentment ; men who would require of a lily that it should be nurtured in a gym- nasium ; and who go about the world constantly reassuring them- selves of their own virility by denouncing what they conceive to be the effeminate weakness of others. To this class the art of Burne-Jones came in the nature of a personal offence. They raged against it ; warning their generation not to yield 28 EDW4RD BURNE-JONES. to its insidious and enervating influence ; and the more it gathered strength the more urgently did they feel impelled to insist [on its inherent weakness. But, as Shakespeare asked of us long ago " How with this rage shall Beauty hold a plea Whose action is no stronger than a flower ? " They forgot that : forgot that something of a feminine, not an effeminate, spirit enters into the re-creation of all forms of beauty ; that an artist, by the very nature of his task, cannot always be in the mood to pose as an athlete. And, even if they had desired to define the special direction of Burne-Jones's art, or to mark the limits of its exercise limits that no admirer, however ardent, would seek to deny they need not surely have been so angry. So at least it seemed to me then. And yet, rightly viewed, the very vehemence of such opposition was in its own way a tribute to his power. Any new artistic growth that passes without challenge may perhaps be justly suspected of being produced without originality, and certainly such work as his, that bears so clearly the stamp of a strong individual presence, could hardly escape a disputed welcome. It must even now in a measure repel many of those whom it does not powerfully attract and charm : for it cannot be regarded with the sort of indifference that is the fate of work less certainly inspired : it must therefore always find both EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 29 friends and foes. But so does much else in the world of art that speaks with even higher authority than his. There are many to whom the matchless spell of Leonardo's genius remains always an enigma ; many again who yield only a respectful assent to the verdict which would set Michael Angelo above all his fellows. We may be patient, then, if the genius of Burne-Jones wins not yet the applause of all. It bears with it a special message, and is secure of homage from those for whom that message is written. They are many to-day who at the first numbered only a few : they are many, and I think even the earliest of them would say that their debt to him was greatest at the last. In praise and love they followed him without faltering to the close of a life that knew no swerving from its ideal ; a life of incessant labour spent in loyal service to the mistress he worshipped ; and even though he had won no wider reward, this I believe would have seemed to him enough. J. COMYNS CARR. LONDON, December, 1898. SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES, BART. EDWARD BURNE-JONES was born at Birmingham in 1833. He was educated at King Edward's School in that city, and in 1852 entered as a student at Exeter College, Oxford. Originally intended for the Church, he afterwards abandoned this idea in favour of Art, and at the age of twenty-three came to London, where he studied painting under the guidance of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with whom and with William Morris, Charles Faulkner, Ford Madox Brown, and Philip Webb, he was afterwards closely associated in schemes which embraced not only painting, but architecture, stained glass, furniture, book illustration, tapestry, and other forms of art crafts- manship. In 1860 he married Georgiana Macdonald, and had three children, of whom the survivors are Philip, the present baronet, and Margaret, wife of J. W. Mackail, Esq. He was elected a member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1863, and contributed regularly to their exhibitions until his retirement in 1870. During the several succeeding years, little of his work was seen by the public ; but from the date of its establish- ment in 1877, he became an annual contributor to the exhibitions of the Grosvenor Gallery, and afterwards to the New Gallery, which was opened in 1888. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1885, but resigned in 1895 ; was made D.C.L. of Oxford in 1881 ; Hon. Fellow of Exeter College, Corresponding Member of the Institute of France : re-elected member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1888. Created a baronet in 1894, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, etc. He died June I7th, 1898. CATALOGUE The Numbers commence in the South Room, and continue from left to right. Throughout the Catalogue, in describing the pictures, the RIGHT and LEFT mean those of the spectator facing the picture. SOUTH ROOM. 1. CLERK SAUNDERS. Clerk Saunders entreats May Margaret to let him into her house ; she faintly repels him. See Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Small full-length figures ; Clerk Saunders in red habit em- bracing May Margaret, who gently resists ; she wears yellow dress ; they stand at the entrance of a house ; town in the distance. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1861. Water colour 27^ x i6 in. Lent by H. T. WELLS. ESQ., R.A. 3. A GIRL AND GOLDFISH. A young girl in red smock heightened with gold, seated by a tank containing goldfish. Water colour, 1 \\ x 8j[ in. Painted in 1861-2. From the Collection of G. P. Boyce. Lent by C. FAIRFAX MURRAY, ESQ. 32 Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM 3. A LOVE SCENE. A youth and maiden, seated on the banks of a stream, kissing. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1862. Water colour, 12 x u in. Lent by G. F. WATTS, ESQ., R.A. 4. THE BLESSED DAMOZEL. " The blessed damozel leaned out From the gold bar of Heaven ; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even." D. G. Rossetti. Small full-length figure of a maiden in red and gold dress, leaning over a bar and looking down on to the earth ; flowers and trees in the background. Water colour, 16 x 8 in. Lent by T. G. ARTHUR, ESQ. 5. THE BACKGAMMON PLAYERS {formerly called the Chess Players). A youth and a maiden, seated in a garden near a house, and playing backgammon ; trees in the background ; sundial to left. Water colour, 9^ x 14 in. Painted 1861-2. Lent by SIR JOHN C. HOLDER. 6. DORIGEN OF BRETAGNE. " Another tyme ther would sche sitte and thinke, And caste her eyen downward fro the brynke ; But when she saugh the grisly rokkes blake, For verray fere so wolde here herte quake That on hire feet sche mighte nought here sustene. Thenne wolde sche sitte adoun upon the greene, And pitously into the sea byholde." Chaucer, The Frankliris Tale. Dorigen, turned from the spectator, kneels in a chamber, and leaning with outstretched arms on a window sill, gazes at the stormy sea ; an organ on the right ; books on the floor. Signed, E. B. J. Water colour, lox 14^ in. Painted in 1871. Lent by CONSTANTINE A. IONIDES, ESQ. SOUTH ROOM.] by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 33 7. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. The Virgin, seated to right, holding the Child ; before her kneel the Magi, making their offerings ; attendants to right and left. Oil, 43x61^ in. Painted in 1861. This, together with No. 8, forms a triptych painted originally as an altar piece for St. Paul's, Brighton. The figures give portraits of William Morris, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and the painter himself. Lent by G. F. BODLEY, ESQ., A.R.A. 8. THE ANNUNCIATION. (Two Panels.) On the left panel is the Angel, Gabriel, kneeling ; a branch in left hand ; the right raised ; background of curtain and foliage ; on a scroll above is inscribed, IN THE SIXTH MONTH THE ANGEL GABRIEL WAS SENT UNTO A CITY OF GALILEE NAMED NAZARETH ; on the right panel, the Virgin, seated to left, her hands clasped to her breast, and receiving the message of the angel ; before her pots of lilies and other flowers ; curtain background ; on a scroll above is inscribed, TO A VIRGIN ESPOUSED TO A MAN WHOSE NAME WAS JOSEPH OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID, AND THE VIRGIN'S NAME WAS MARY. Oil, 4o| x 29 in. (each). (See No. 7.) Lent by G. F. BODLEY, ESQ., A.R.A. 9. THE ANNUNCIATION. On the left stands the Virgin, wearing a blue robe with red sleeves and holding a dove ; she is addressed by the angel Gabriel, bearing a censer ; in the background the serpent, entwined around the tree of Knowledge. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1861. Water colour, 21 x 15 in. Lent by RICHARD MILLS, ESQ. 1O. FAIR ROSAMOND AND QUEEN ELEANOR. On the right Rosamond, in white dress, is attempting to escape, but is entangled by a red cord, held by Queen Eleanor, who follows behind her. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1862. Water colour, 10 x loA in. From the Leathart Collection. Exhibited at the Royal Water Colour Society 1864, the New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by EDWARD CLIFFORD, ESQ. 34 Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM. 1 1 . CINDERELLA. Full-length figure of a girl in green dress and white apron, standing before a dresser, with plates, dishes, &c. ; her right hand is raised to her hair, and her left holds her apron ; she wears the glass slipper on her left foot. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1863. Water colour, 27 x \-2.\ in. Exhibited at the Royal Water Colour Society 1864. Lent by A. E. STREET, ESQ. 12. A LANDSCAPE. (" IN A WOOD.") Water colour, 7^ x 8| in. Lent by J. F. HORNER, ESQ. 13. VIRIDIS OF MILAN. Half-length figure of a woman in a blue dress with open front ; facing and leaning on a table ; her right hand rests on an apple ; before her, a rose ; on the left, a scroll inscribed E. B. J., 1861. Water colour, ii x 9^ in. Lent by H. J. WELLS, Esq., R.A. 14. THE KING'S WEDDING. On the right King Rend and his bride, seated under a canopy ; before them dance six maidens dressed in blue ; on the left a statue of Cupid under a canopy ; in the background behind a wall are girls playing instruments of music. Signed E. BURNE JONES. Water colour on vellum, I2f x 10^ in. Painted in 1870. From the W. Graham Collection. Lent by J. F. HORNER, ESQ. 15. LAUS VENERIS. Sketch for No. 96. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1861. Water colour, 12 x 1 8 in. Lent by COLONEL H. JEKYLL. SOUTH ROOM.] by Sir Edward Burne- Jones. 35 16. THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE. "Amor vincit omnia." Four panels ; the first represents " Fortune" with her wheel, as in No. 95 ; the second, " Fame," blowing his trumpet ; the third, " Oblivion," with his scythe ; and the fourth, " Love," with his bow, trampling on " Oblivion " ; behind, " Fame " dead and " Fortune " with her wheel in the distance. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1871. Water colour first and fourth panels, 12 x 6 in. ; second and third panels, 12 x 5^ in. Designed as a predella for " Troy," which was not finished. From the Brockbank Collection. Lent by DOUGLAS W. FRESHFIELD, ESQ. 17. ASTROLOGIA. Half-length figure of a girl, to left, in red dress, holding up in both hands the crystal ball, into which she is looking intently ; before her an open book on a table. Water colour, 21 x l8J in. Painted in 1865. Exhibited at the Royal Water-Colour Society 1865, New Gallery 1892-3. 18. PYRAMUS AND THISBE. A TRIPTYCH. " But what is that that love cannot espie, Ye lovers too if that I shall not lie, Ye founden first this little narrow clift, And with a sound as soft as any shrift They let their wordes through the clifte pace, And tolden, while they stonden in the place All their complaint of love and all their woe At every time when they durste so." CHAUCER, Legend of Good Women. On the right panel is seen Pyramus in a white robe leaning forward, and peeping through a cleft in the wall watching Thisbe, who is represented on the left panel in the act of taking a letter placed in the wall before her ; in the centre panel is a kneeling figure of Cupid on a pedestal in the act of drawing C 36 Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM. his bow ; background of foliage ; on a scroll below the pedestal is the above quotation. Signed on left panel, E. B. J. Water colour, on vellum ; outer panels, 14 x io in. ; centre panel, 14 x si in. Lent by WALTER HOLLAND, ESQ. 19. ST. VALENTINE'S MORNING. A maiden lying on a coueh, listening to the strains of a zither played by a waiting woman ; at the window appears Love bearing a letter sealed with a heart. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1863. Water colour, 11 x 15 in. Lent by A. E. STREET, ESQ. 20. THE GARLAND. On the top of a flight of steps leading from a court-yard stands a maiden in rose-colour dress, in the folds of w hich she holds a spray of wild roses. Signed E. B. J., 1866. Water colour, 30 x 17^ in. (See also No. 26.) This and No. 26 form part of a design for a picture in six compartments, which was not completed. Lent by MESSRS. ARTHUR TOOTH AND SONS. 21. VENUS EPITHALAMIA. The goddess stands on the left, and leans against a statue of Cupid ; she holds a torch in her left hand ; in the background through a doorway is seen a procession of figures carrying torch es ; a nude figure standing on a ladder is placing a gar- land over the doorway. Signed and dated, E. B. J., MDCCCLXXI. Water colour, 15 x io in. Lent by MRS. STILLMAN. 22. CLARA VON BORK. Small full-length figure to right, in yellow dress, with brown velvet sleeves, holding in her hands a nest of fledgling doves ; figures in the background, cat in the foreground. Signed E. B. JONES PINXIT, 1860. Water-colour, 13! x 7 in. From the Leathart Collection. Exhibited at the New Gallery, 1892-3. This and No. 24 were done for characters in Meinhold's Sidonia the Sorceress. Lent by W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON, ESQ. SOUTH ROOM.] by Sir Edward Burne- Jones. 37 23. DIES DOMINI. Christ, in a blue raiment, in the act of benediction, descending on the wings of angels ; His left hand points to His pierced side. Water-colour, circular, 44 in. Painted 1880. Exhibited at the New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by the EARL OF CARLISLE. 24. SlDONIA VON BORK. Small full-length figure to left, in white dress, covered with black interlaced pattern ; figures in the background. Signed 1860, E. BURNE JONES FECIT. Water colour, 13 x 6i in. From the Leathart Collection. Exhibited at the New Gallery 1892-3. (See No. 22.) Lent by W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON, ESQ. 25. THE ALTAR OF HYMEN.. Two figures embracing before an altar ; in the background stands Cupid, blinded, near his mother Venus, who is seated and holds an apple. At the foot of the altar are initials and date, A.M. FEB. xxvi. MDCCCLXXIV. Signed E. B. J. Gold and water colour, 15 x \o\ in. Lent by SIR KENNETH MUIR MACKENZIE, K.C.B 26. THE GARLAND. In a court-yard stands a maiden in rose-coloured robe ; she is turned from the spectators, and her hands rest on a staff twined with ribbon, up which is trained a flowering rose-tree. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1866. Water colour, 30 x \"j\ in. (See No. 20.) Lent by MESSRS. ARTHUR TOOTH AND SONS. 27. GIRL SEATED IN A MEADOW. A girl in black dress, seated on the grass, her hands clasped around her knee ; in the background a mill near a stream. Water colour, 7^ x 6| in. From Lord Leighton's Collection. Lent by S. P. COCKERELL, ESQ. C 2 38 Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM. 38. HOPE. " If Hope were not, heart should break." Half-length figure of a woman facing in green dress, open in front ; right hand resting on parapet ; left holding ball on which is a scroll with motto as above : background of foliage. Signed EDWARD BURNE JONES. Water colour, 8 x 6J in. Painted in 1862. Exhibited at the New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by MRS. KNOWLES. 29. THE FEAST OF PELEUS. '* At the marriage feast of Peleus, whereat he entertained the gods, when all seemed well, Discord entered unbidden, and cast an apple on the board, on which was written ' For the Fairest.' This apple the three great goddesses claimed, and with this strife began many ills to men and the ruin of Troy.'' Around a table set upon the seashore of Thessaly, and pre- pared for a feast, are grouped a company of gods and goddesses, with attendant centaurs. On the extreme right stands Discord, with bat wings and head wreathed with knotted serpents. By her side sits the dark-skinned Bacchus, crowned with ivy, who crushes grape juice into a cup ; and behind are Proserpine and Ceres, the latter crowned with wheat. Next to Bacchus, winged and wearing the cap of darkness, kneels Mercury, holding in his left hand the golden apple of Discord, whilst in his right he holds up a scroll inscribed " DETUR PUL- CHERRIMJE." Close to him is Apollo, bearing his harp, and further 10 the left Love preparing the marriage couch and the three Fates spinning their fatal web. At the end of the table sit Mars and Vulcan, and at the back in the following order are Venus, Minerva, and Juno, all of whom are seeking the ex- pected reward. Beside Juno is Jove, seated upon his throne, and bearing the emblems of his majesty, and on his left, shielded beneath the eagle's wing, are Thetis, swathed in the flame-coloured bridal robe, and her husband Peleus. In the background, landscape and distant sea. Signed, E. B. J. Oil, 1 5 x 43^ in. panel. Painted 18721881. From the W. Graham Collection. Ex- hibited at the Grosvenor Gallery 1882, New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by WILLIAM KENRICK, ESQ. SOUTH ROOM.] by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 39 30. A LANDSCAPE. Water colour, 6f x 1 5 in. Lent by SIR KENNETH MUIR MACKENZIE, K.C.B. 31. DANAE'S TOWER. Acrisius, king of Argos, having dreamt that he would be slain by the son of his daughter Danae, built a brazen tower in which to imprison her for life, hoping thus to escape his fate. Danae, in red dress, standing in a court and watching the building of the tower, which is seen in the distance through a. door ; before her a fountain ; behind her the cypress tree. Signed, E. B. J. Panel, 15 x 7^ in. Painted in 1872. From the W. Graham Collection. Lent by MRS. R. H. BENSON. 322. A SACRIFICE TO HYMEN. On the left stands Love, near a wreathed altar, playing on his lyre ; on the other side of the altar are seated on the ground a youth and a maiden ; her right hand rests upon a tambourine and her left is held by the youth ; at his side a rustic pipe ; in the background trees and city. Oil, iox 14 in. Painted in 1875. Lent by CHARLES D. GALLOWAY, ESQ. 33. THE MERMAID. A mermaid with her child in the sea near the shore. Signed in monogram and dated E. B. J., 1882. Water colour, 12^x9 in. Lent by LADY LEWIS. 34. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR TRISTRAM. "Then by the meanes of King Howell and his son, Sir Kay Hedius, by their great proffers there grew great love betweene Isoud le blaunch Mains and Sir Tristram, for that lady was both good and faire and a woman of noble blood and fame .... And so upon a time Sir Tristram agreed to wed Isoud 4O Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM. le blaunch Mains, and so at last they were wedded and solemnly held their marriage." Morte (f Arthur, c. xxxvi. The knight is placing the ring on the ringer of his bride, Iseult of the White Hand, whose train is held by an attendant ; be- tween them stands the bishop before the altar ; on the left are King Howell of Bretagne and his Queen. Water colour, 23 x 22 in. Painted in 1862. Lent by A. E. STREET, ESQ. 35. THE RING GIVEN TO VENUS. "There was a man in a certain great city who on his wedding-day unwittingly gave his spousal ring to the goddess Venus. And for this cause trouble came upon him, till in the end he got his ring back again." Earthly Paradise. In a chamber a youth in dark brown robe is placing a ring on the finger of a half-nude statue of Venus ; his head is turned towards his bride, who holds an apple ; in the background are girls running. Water colour, \"2.\ x 19 in. Panel. Un- finished ; begun in 1872. Lent by THE EXECUTORS OF THE ARTIST. 36. THE PRIORESS'S TALE. " My litel child, now wol I fechen thee Whan that the grayn is fro thy tonge ytake ; Be not agaste, I wol thee not forsake." Chaucer's The Prioress's Tale. Behind a low parapet, with open door, stands the Virgin in dark blue robes, and holding ears of corn in her left hand ; she bends forward and places a grain into the mouth of a little child, who is rising to receive it ; in the foreground and at the sides are lilies, poppies, and sunflowers ; in the background is a scene in the street of a town, the child being murdered and scholars entering school on the left, and other groups. Signed E. B. J., 1865-98. Water colour, 40^ x 25 in. The last work completed by the painter. Exhibited at the New Gallery 1898. Lent by LADY COLVILE. SOUTH ROOM.] by Sir Edward Burne- Jones. 41 37. THE MADNESS OF SIR TRISTRAM. " So would Sir Tristram come unto that harp, and hearken the melodious sound thereof, and sometimes he would harpe him- selfe. Thus he endured there a quarter of a year." Historic of King Arthur, c. lix. In the foreground, seated on the ground, is Sir Tristram playing a harp ; behind him, on the left, stands a maiden in white, and leaning against a tree ; before him is a seated youth and behind him a woman holding a white hound. Signed E. B. J. Water colour, 23^ x 22 in. Painted in 1862. Exhibited at the Society of British Artists 1892, New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by MRS. CORONIO. 38. GREEN SUMMER. In a glade a group of maidens, dressed in green and listening to one who reads from a book ; in the background, water and trees. Signed and dated E. B. J., 1864. Water colour, ii x 19 in. Exhibited at the Royal Water Colour Society 1865, New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by W. COLTART, ESQ. 39. THE DAYS OF CREATION. Six panels, with angels holding globes, on each of which is represented a different phase of the creation of the world. On the first is shown the division of light and darkness ; on the second, the ordering of chaos ; on the third, the dividing of the waters and the land ; on the fourth, the creation of the sun, moon and stars ; on the fifth, the creation of animal life ; and on the sixth, that of Adam and Eve, whilst the " Day of Rest " is symbolised by an angel seated playing a musieal instrument. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1876. Water colour (six panels), 40 x 13^ in. each. From the W. Graham Collection. Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery 1877, New Gallery 1892-93. Lent by ALEXANDER HENDERSON, ESQ., M.P. 42 Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM. 4O. THE FORGE OF CUPID. " Under a tree, beside a welle, I sey Cupide our Lorde his arrows forge and file ; And at his feet his bowe already lay ; And wel his doughter tempred, al the while, The heddes in the welle ; and with her wile She couched hem after, as they shulde serve Some to slee, and some to wound and kerve." Chaucer's Assembly of Faults. In a grove Cupid in red habit kneels beside his anvil busily filing an arrowhead ; before him kneels his daughter, tempering the hot blade of an arrow and holding others already completed. Signed and dated, E. B. J, pinxit 1861. Water colour, I2| by 19! in. Exhibited at the New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by MRS. R. H. BENSON. 41. CHAUCER'S DREAM OF GOOD WOMEN. " And from a ferre came walking in the mede The God of Love, and in his hand a queen, And she was clad in royal habit green." From the Prologue to Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. The poet is seen seated at a fountain, asleep : on the right, divided from him by a large poppy, the emblem of sleep, is Love, winged, who leads to him a girl in a green dress, the first of a procession of ladies winding away into the far distance along a woodland valley. Signed E. B. J. Water colour, 1 8 x 24 in. Painted in 1865. Exhibited at the New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by SIR KENNETH MUIR MACKENZIE, K.C.B. SOUTH ROOM.] by Sir Edward Biirne-Jones. 43 42. THE WIZARD. (Unfinished.} In a panelled chamber the wizard stands, with his right hand turning the leaves of an ancient volume, whilst with the left he withdraws a curtain and discloses a shipwreck in a magic mirror to a maiden standing beside him ; before her, resting upon a tripod, is a copper cauldron, heated by a brazier ; dis- posed about the room are other symbols of his art. Oil, 36 x 21 in., panel. Lent by SIR JOHN C. HOLDER. 43. THE GRAIAE. The original sketch for No. 121. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1880. Oil, 12x17 in., panel. Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery 1882, New Gallery, 1892-3. Lent by MRS. R. H. BENSON. 44. CHAUCER'S "DREAM OF GOOD WOMEN." The original design for No. 41, from which it varies in some particulars. The composition consists of six figures only, and the garden is bounded by a stone wall, beyond which is seen a grove wi,th trees. Signed E. B. J., 1865. Water colour, JI i x i Si i n - From Lord Leighton's Collection. Exhibited at the Royal Water Colour Society 1867. Lent by C. FAIRFAX MURRAY, ESQ. 45. SAINT CECILIA. Small full-length figure of St. Cecilia, facing, in crimson drapery, playing an organ, which is suspended from her neck. Signed and dated, E. H. J., 1870. Water-colour, 2iA x io in. From the W. Graham Collection. Lent by J. F. HORNER, ESQ. 44 Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM. 46. HERO. Full-length figure of Hero, in white drapery, bending to right, and thrusting a branch into a fire, the signal to Leander. Oil, 28^ x 30^ in. A design in oils. Painted in 1875. Lent by MRS. WILLIAM GRAHAM. 47. THE BRIAR-ROSE. The story of the Sleeping Beauty, told in three pictures : In this picture, the Prince is seen entering the wood in which are the sleeping Knights ; the second (No. 48), repre- sents the King with his court all asleep ; and the third (No. 57), the Sleeping Beauty with her maidens. In this series, which is the earlier rendering, the subject of " the Garden Court" was not included. Oil, 23^ x 50^ in. Painted in 1871. Lent by MRS. WILLIAM GRAHAM. 48. THE BRIAR-ROSE. The King and his sleeping courtiers (see No. 47). Signed and dated, E. B. J., MDCCCLXXI Oil, 23^ x 52! in. Lent by MRS. WILLIAM GRAHAM. 49. THE THREE MARIES. Small full-length figures ; in front stands the Virgin, in white robe and red and blue mantle, and holding the lily ; behind her are five women, two of whom hold her robe. Oil, 41 x 19^ in. Lent by MRS. RADCLIFFE. 50. FATIMA. Full-length figure, facing, in red dress with brown sleeves and red turban, in the act of putting the fatal key into the door on her left. Water colour, 31 x 10^ in. Painted in 1862. Lent by the EARL OF CARLISLE. SOUTH ROOM.] by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 45 51. THE SISTERS. Two maidens, one dressed in grey, the other in red, walking in a landscape ; a building in the distance. Signed E. B. J. Water colour, 13x6! in. Lent by LADY LEWIS. 52. A LANDSCAPE. Water colour 7^ x 17 in. Lent by SIR PHILIP BURNE-JONES, BART. 53. THE MERCIFUL KNIGHT. " Of a Knight who was merciful to his enemy whom he might have destroyed ; and how the image of Christ kissed him in token that his acts had pleased God." The Knight, having laid aside his helmet and sword, is seen kneeling in a shrine before a crucifix, the figure of which bends forward from the cross and embraces him ; landscape back-ground with figure on horseback. Signed and dated, EDWARD BURNE JONES, 1863. Water colour, 39^ x 27 in. From the Leathart Collection. Exhibited at the Royal Water Colour Society 1864, New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by JOHN T. MIDDLEMORE, ESQ. 54. LOVE DISGUISED AS REASON. In a landscape before a city on the sea-shore stand two maidens with hands joined before Love, wearing the cloak and hood of Reason, with a book and bow under his arm, the forefingers of each hand crossed ; between them in the background the stem of a tree. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1870. Water colour, 26^ x 12^ in. From the W. Graham Collection. Exhibited at the Royal Water Colour Society 1870, New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by GERTRUDE, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 46 Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM. 55. THE ANNUNCIATION. In a chamber the Virgin kneeling before a couch, on which is an open book ; before her appears the Angel, Gabriel, holding a lily. Water colour, 12 x io in. (See also No. 59.) Lent by MRS. RADCLIFFE. 56. ST. DOROTHEA. The Saint stands facing, clad in red dress and blue mantle ; her right hand holds a sword, and with her left she receives a basket 'of flowers from a child-angel, who stands before her, and is turned from the spectator. Inscribed E. B. J. to R. H. Water colour, 37 J x 15^ in. Lent by the EARL OF CARLISLE. 57. THE BRIAR-ROSE. The Sleeping Beauty, with her maidens. (See No. 47). Signed and dated, E. B. J. MDCCCLXXI. Oil, 23^ x 45 in. Lent by MRS. WILLIAM GRAHAM. 58. CUPID AND PYSCHE. Cupid being sent by Venus to destroy Psyche, is ensnared by her love when he first sees her. " So soon the rustle of her wings 'gan stir, Her looser folds of raiment, and the hair Spread wide upon the grass and daisies fair As Love cast down his eyes with a half smile, Godlike and cruel ; that faded in a while, And long he stood above her hidden eyes, With red lips parted in God's surprise." Earthly Paradise, Story of Cupid and Psyche. Psyche, bare to the waist, asleep, her arm resting on a parapet ; before her Cupid stands, looking down at her ; he is in blue drapery, and holds his bow and arrow in his right hand ; from a lion's head on the right falls a spout of water ; city in the back- ground. Water colour, 27 x i8| in. From the W. Graham Collection. Lent by Mrs. R. H. BENSON. SOUTH ROOM.] by Sir Edward Bume-Jones. 47 59. THE ANNUNCIATION, OR "THE FLOWER OF GOD." In a chamber the Virgin kneeling before a couch, on which is an open book ; before her ap pears the Angel, Gabriel, holding a lily and wearing red robes. Water colour, 24 x 21 in. (See also No. 55.) Painted in 1863. Exhibited at the Royal Water Colour Society 1864, New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by W. COLTART, ESQ. 60. ZEPHYRUS AND PSYCHE. " He came in sight Of Psyche laid in swoon upon the hill, And smiling set himself to do Love's will, For in his arms he took her up with care, Wondering to see a mortal made so fair, And came into the vale in little Space, And set her down in the most flowery place." Earthly Paradise, Story of Cupid and Psyche. From a mountain-top Zephyrus, in a green robe, is bearing away Psyche asleep, draped in red, to the Palace of Love. Water colour, 15 x io| in. Painted in 1865. From the W. Graham Collection. Exhibited at the Royal Water Colour Society 1866. Lent by GERTRUDE, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 61. PAN AND PSYCHE. Psyche, in despair at Love's loss, casts herself into the river. " But the kind river even yet did deem That she should live, and, with all gentle care, Cast her ashore within a meadow fair Upon the other side, where shepherd Pan Sat looking down upon the water wan." Earthly Paradise, Story of Cupid and Psyche. In a landscape, Pan, kneeling on a rock, leans over and tenderly places his hand on the head of Psyche, who is coming out of the stream. Signed E. B. J. Oil, 23^ x zo\ in. Similar to No. 90. Painted for Mr. A. lonides. Lent by MRS. R. H. BENSON. 48 Exhibition of the Works [SOUTH ROOM. 62. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. The Princess, asleep on a richly-draped couch, at the side of which is seated an attendant also asleep, a lute at her side ; green curtain above, and rose-briars in the background. Water colour, 38 x 58 in. Inscribed on the left E. B. J. to M. J. M., 1886-1888. Lent by MRS. J. W. MACKAIL. WEST ROOM.] by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 49 WEST ROOM. 63. SPES. Full-length figure of Hope, in blue drapery, standing to right before a barred window, holding a branch of apple-blossom in her right hand, and looking up towards her left hand, which is enveloped in a light blue cloud. Signed and dated, E. BURNE- JONES, 1871. Water colour, 69 x 27 \ in. From the F. T. Ellis Collection. Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery 1877, New Gallery 1892-3. Lent by ALEXANDER HENDERSON, ESQ., M.P. 64. FLAMMA VESTALIS Half-length figure of a maiden to right, in a dark-blue robe and light-blue headdress ; water, with boat, and buildings in the background. Signed and dated, E. B. J., 1896. Oil, 24^ x i6J in. Lent by C. SIDNEY GOLDMANN, ESQ. 65. THE WINE OF CIRCE. " Dusk-haired and gold-robed o'er the golden wine She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and shame, Sink the black drops ; while, lit with fragrant flame, Round her spread board the golden sunflowers shine. Doth Helios here with Hecate combine (O Circe, thou their votaress?) to proclaim For these thy guests all rapture in Love's name, Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign? Lords of their hour, they come. And by her knee Those cowering beasts, their equals heretofore, 5