Edward Burne-Jones ~ Earth Mother, 1882

"Burne-Jones was a second-generation member of the pre-Raphaelite artists, who rejected the growing materialization of industrialized England. Instead they focused on the comparative simplicity of the medieval world and the art of Italian painters prior to Raphael. 'Earth Mother', which shows the influence of Renaissance artists like Botticelli, was painted by Burne-Jones in connection with his series of stained-glass windows representing the planets. Here is an allusion to Earth Mother's role of nurturing all life: human, represented by the child; animal, by the wolf; and horticultural, by the trees and vegetation. The snake next to the feet of Earth Mother symbolizes fertility and relates to Ceres, goddess of earth. To show earth's role in the transitional nature of water, the allegorical figure is represented holding up a blue jar that produces clouds, rain, and eventually a stream below. To create the ivorylike skin of the figures and the rich textures throughout, Burne-Jones employed the ancient technique of encaustic. The pigments are bound in a wax medium, over which the artist applied oil glazes and, in certain areas, minute touches of gold for an even more decorative effect." - JAW, Worchester Art Museum

http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/European/1983.1.html
Worcester, Massachusetts

Such a beautiful work.

Aurora - Edward Burne-Jones

"A small pocket-book of this time [1866] contains a note made by Edward from a canal-bridge in a poor quarter of the city, which nearly thirty years afterwards he developed into the background of his "Aurora." The main outlines of building and canal are preserved in the picture, and Aurora with her cymbals comes lightly stepping along a waterside path from which in the original sketch a woman stoops to bathe her baby, but the canal has changed into an arm of a river and the houses have been welded into the long, low storage-places of a wharf, crowned by a great church lifted up against the sky." - from Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones by Georgiana Burne-Jones

Aurora, 1896
Queensland Art Gallery

"Aurora, the Roman mythical personification of dawn, is here depicted barefoot and with cymbals to wake the sleeping city as a soft dawn light rises behind rooftops and distant trees. ... The face of Aurora in this work is an idealised portrait of Bessie Keene, one of the artist's models." - Link to Queensland Art Gallery note

Reframing Burne Jones 'Aurora' (1896) - an article from the Queensland Art Gallery (Link)

Edward Burne-Jones ~ Bessie Keene

Three drawings of Bessie Keene - studies for the head of the woman in Love Among the Ruins, 1893-94.
Courtesy Leicester Galleries

A wonderful article from ArtMagick prompted my searching today ... Love Among the Ruins ... a Burne-Jones painting in ruins: -Link-

Love Among the Ruins, 1893-94
Bearsted Collection, Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton

Thornbridge Hall window ~ Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris

"... In 1871 Sleigh sold the Hall and 185 acres (about 77 hectares) of land to Frederick Craven who commissioned the architect J B Mitchell-Withers to rebuild the Hall in the Jacobean style, with stained-glass windows by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones." - Parks and Garden UK

Pygmalion and the Image - The Soul Attains by Edward Burne-Jones was part of the Frederick Craven Collection. Another work in his collection was Night. (I believe now part of the Lloyd Webber Collection.)
http://www.preraphaelites.org/the-collection/1903p26/pygmalion-and-the-image-the-soul-attains/

Photo courtesy White Beer Travels
The current owner of Thornbridge Hall
is the proprietor of Thornbridge Brewerey.

Edward Burne-Jones - Morris & Co. ~ Constance & Dorigen

Stained Glass Panel
Chaucer's 'Legend of Good Women'
Constance

Birmingham Museums and Art Galleries
"This panel seems to have been made as part
of a series for Birket Foster's house,
the Hill, in Witley, Surrey."
-Link-

Pencil drawings and stained glass cartoons
Chaucer's Legend of Good Women
-Link-

Stained Glass Panel
Chaucer's 'Legend of Good Women'
Dorigen

-Link-

Edward Burne-Jones - William Morris ~ Thornbridge Hall Window (Derbyshire)

Thornbridge Hall Window
(Photo courtesy Nottinghamshire Notes)

"In the top tier the 4 roundels were designed by Burne-Jones in 1862, depicted Griselda, Dorigen, Constance & Cressida.
[another version shown in Monday's blog entry above - link]
The second tier depicts minstrels ... designed by William Morris.
The bottom tier, again by Burne-Jones in 1878 depict
Luna, Earth, Morning Star and Evening Star."
- Nottinghamshire Notes
-Link-
~~~
Thornbridge Hall

Edward Burne-Jones - William Morris & Co. ~ Beautiful stained glass

Morning Star

Evening Star

Luna

Details of three of the five Morris & Co. panels
featured in the March 2008 Sotheby's sale,
The Jimmy Page Collection.
-Link-

"... the windows [were] made for [Angus] Holden at Woodlands in 1879. ... Nine panels were originally designed by Burne-Jones for Woodlands: `Venus', `Evening Star',` Saturn', `Jupiter', `Luna', `Earth',` Sol', `Morning Star' and `Mars'."
-Catalogue Notes-

~~~~~~

(click on image for larger picture)
Two panels, (Sol and Mars)
were part of the Gabreal Franklin Collection in 2009.
(I'm not sure if they currently are still there.)
The others were with Jimmy Page until 2008.
The panels Earth and Saturn were unlocated in 2009.
(Photo courtesy the Franklin Collection)
-Link-

William Morris and 'The Beauty of Life' - from the blog, 'Venetian Red'

Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, 1890
photo:William Morris Gallery, London

Photographs included in the interesting blog entry,

Eminent Victorian: William Morris and 'The Beauty of Life'

written by Christine Cariati.
- Link -

Drawing Room, Kelmscott Manor
(Click on image for a larger picture.)
~~~
http://www.kelmscottmanor.org.uk/

Edward Burne-Jones

1. The Angel
"Painting of angel dressed in blue, playing a flageolet"
(c) Glasgow City Council (Museums)
2. & 3. Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford
"East window in the south choir aisle by Morris & Co
designed by Burne-Jones 1877-8"
Photographs by Eric Hardy
close-up photos from others ...
link
link

[A few new links and images were added to Edward Burne-Jones - those lovely angels that was posted on Monday. :)]

Edward Burne-Jones - Angels

"The more materialistic science becomes, the more angels shall I paint: their wings are my protest in favour of the immortality of the soul."
(Edward Burne-Jones - from The essays of Oscar Wilde)

"For every locomotive they build," vowed artist Edward Burne-Jones, "I shall paint another angel." - from an article by Terri Windling

Angel Playing a Flageolet

An Angelic Choir - 'chiaroscuro's' Art Album

Edward Burne-Jones - Study for a girl watering roses

"A figure in this pose was drawn by Burne-Jones in the mid-1860s, but the present drawing would seem to date from some years later. It is evidently a form of decoration, perhaps needlework, a field with which he became involved in the 1870s when he was asked to supply designs for the Royal School of Art Needlework, founded in 1872.
Alexander Ionides, the drawing's first owner, was the younger brother of Constantine Ionides of the Victoria and Albert Museum bequest, and himself a passionate collector. On his marriage in 1875 he took over his parents' house, 1 Holland Park, and proceeded to turn it into one of the great 'aesthetic' houses of the day, comparable to that created at the same period by F.R. Leyland at 49 Prince's Gate. Burne-Jones was one of the many artists and designers who contributed to it. He was responsible for four of the paintings, and may have made this sketch for some detail of the decoration." - Catalogue notes

Study for a girl watering roses (and detail)
inscribed with colour notes (lower centre, in the margin)
pencil, fragmentary watermark
57/8 x 45/8 in. (15 x 11.7 cm.)

Edward Burne-Jones - a study

Recently sold at auction - Tennants Auctioneers

"Inscribed with a personal inscription To Sir Henry Austen Layard from EBJ, also dated July 1893, pencil drawing, 22cm by 17.5cm"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austen_Henry_Layard
(Both images are details ... click on the first one for a larger image.)

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.

Burne-Jones family piano

Panel above keyboard

Panel below the keyboard

The piano was "made by Frederick Priestley, an otherwise unknown piano maker, and given as a wedding present to Edward Burne-Jones in 1860. He subsequently decorated it with a scene from the Medieval Romance, the 'Chant d'Amour' and an allegory of death. In her biography, 'The Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones', his wife referred to a picture of Death on the panel below the keyboard, 'standing outside the gate of a garden where a number of girls, unconscious of his approach, are resting and listening to music'."
- courtesy The Victoria & Albert Museum

(detail from image above)

American oak case, painted with shellac varnish
Length 127 cm
Height 93.5 cm
Depth 47 cm
Museum no. W.43-1926
Given by Mrs J. W. Mackail, daughter of the artist
Gallery location: Musical Instruments, room 40a, case BY5

The only information I found about Frederick Priestley gave information about a patent "for improvements in piano-fortes [Dated 16th April, 1856]" - it gave his address as Cleveland-street, Fitzroy-square.

Georgiana Burne-Jones at the piano

Georgiana Burne-Jones at the piano

By Sir Edward Burne-Jones
with inscription 'G B-J by E B-J'
(on an old label attached to the backboard)
pencil
3¾ x 3 7/8 in. (9.5 x 9.8 cm.)

"... Georgie was a talented muscian, playing the piano well and possessing a good singing voice, with which she would render the early songs and border ballards so popular in her circle at this date. The piano she plays in our drawing is reminiscent of the small upright, made by Priestly of Berners Street in unpolished American walnut, which was given to her as a wedding present and decorated by Burne-Jones. The instrument is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum." - from the catalogue notes

Georgiana Burne-Jones

Georgiana, circa 1861-2
By Sir Edward Burne-Jones

"... depicts Burne-Jones's wife, Georgiana in circa 1861-2. There is a possibility that it was a study for the wall hanging made for John Ruskin's new house in the Wye valley depicting Chaucer's 'The Legend of Good Women'."- from the catalogue notes