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23a
STUDY for LAUS VENERIS
1878
SIR
EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, Bt.
1833-1898
Pencil,
23.8 x 15.7 (9.5 x 6)
Provenance:
Probably 2nd Studio Sale, Christie's 5 June 1919 (68 with
another), bought by Edmund Davis for 25 gns.; Sir Edmund Davis
sale, Christie's 15 May 1942 (24 with 2 others), bought Croal
Thompson for 36 gns.; Barbizon House; Cecil French.
Exhibited:
Fulham 1967 (15); Sheffield 1971 (61); Fulham 1983 (11).
A
full face study of a young woman with long dark hair, her
head bent slightly to the left and looking down with a concerned
expression.
A
study for the fourth attendant on the right in the painting
Laus Veneris, dated 1873-5 but completed in 1878, (119.4
x 180.3) which is now in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle
upon Tyne.
The
painting shows the court of Venus from the story of Tannhä-user,
a 16th century German ballad. The eponymous hero is lured
into the Venusberg where he spends seven dissolute years.
On emerging he seeks absolution from the Pope who replies
that the likelihood of for-giveness is as remote as his staff
bearing leaves and Tannhauser departs in sadness. After three
days the Pope's staff blossoms and knights are sent to find
the wanderer who is not to be found having returned to Venus.
The
legend was used by Morris in his tale of The Hill of Venus
in The Earthly Paradise (1868), for which Burne-Jones
drew twelve designs for woodcuts in 1867. However his treatment
of the story differs entirely from that of Morris and his
interest predates Morris's verse for his first version of
the subject was a watercolour c.1862 (30.5 x 45.7) in a private
collection.
The
general mood of the painting, one of lassitude and languor,
is closer to A.C.Swinburne's poem of the same title, written,
according to George Meredith, in 1862 and published in Poems
and Ballads, 1866, a volume dedicated to Burne-Jones.
John Christian suggests (Arts Council catalogue, 1975) that
Burne-Jones may have first read the legend in Carlyle's 1827
translation of Johann Ludwig Tieck's Phantasus (1812-17).
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