Edward Burne-Jones - Le Chant D'Amour

"Burne-Jones's painting `Le Chant d'Amour' (finished 1877, now held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) was commissioned by William Graham, the artist's principal patron and close friend, in 1868 (although not finished until 1877). The title was taken from the refrain of an old Breton song:
Helas! Je sais un chant d'amour,
Triste ou gai, tour à tour.
Such songs were collected and sung by Georgiana Burne-Jones, and the original design was conceived for the decoration of a piano which the artist and his wife were given as a wedding present in 1860 (now in The Victoria and Albert Museum, London). Described by John Christian as `one of Burne-Jones's most haunting works' (Hartnoll, p.22), `Le Chant d'Amour' was considered by the writer Henry James to be `a brilliant success' (op. cit., p.23) when it was first exhibited at the Grosvenor in 1878 ..." - from Cambridge Prints.

Le Chant D'Amour

"'Love Song', with its figures reminiscent of the fifteenth-century Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio and its "Arthurian" landscape bathed in evening light, reflects the profound influence of both the Italian Renaissance and the gothicizing Pre-Raphaelite movement. This painting is the definitive version of several works that Burne-Jones based on a refrain from an old Breton song: "Hélas! je sais un chant d'amour, / Triste ou gai, tour à tour" (Alas, I know a love song, / Sad or happy, each in turn).' - from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.