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Love Among the Ruins is a painting by English artist Edward Burne-Jones which exists in two versions, a watercolour completed in 1873 (damaged in 1893 and restored in 1898) and an oil painting completed in 1894. It depicts a man and a woman amid ruined architecture. The work is a synthesis of influences from the Pre-Raphaelite, Symbolist and Aesthetic art movements. The ambiguous scene without a clear narrative is considered one of Burne-Jones' best works.
The title refers to Robert Browning's poem Love Among the Ruins , published in Men and Women in 1855. The subtext is the ending of Burne-Jones' four-year love affair with his model Maria Zambaco. She attempted to commit suicide in the Regent's Canal in 1869 after he attempted to end their affair.
The work depicts two lovers in blue robes, a man and a woman, seated together on a stone capital amid the ruins of buildings. A broken column is at their feet, covered with briar rose, perhaps an allusion to Burne-Jones' Briar Rose series. In the background is a door with a frieze of putti, and arches leading into the distance. The setting may be influenced by the ruins of Polyandrion from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.
When sold at Christie's in 2013, the lot essay identified the models as the Italians Alessandro di Marco and Antonia Caiva. Others have suggested that they may be Maria Zambaco and Gaetano Meo. The model in the second version may be Bessie Keeane. Whoever the models are, the male and female figures are taken to allude to Burne-Jones himself and his lover Maria Zambaco.
The watercolour was painted on paper from 1870 to 1873 at the studio of John Roddam Spencer Stanhope at Little Campden House, on Campden Hill in Kensington. It was made from watercolour mixed with gouache and gum arabic, giving it a finished appearance resembling an oil painting. It measures 96.5 cm × 152.4 cm (38.0 in × 60.0 in) (37.9″ x 60 ″) and is signed with the initials "EBJ" to the lower left, and signed "Edward Burne Jones" on the backboard. The backboard bears the typed inscription "This Picture, being painted in WATER/COLOUR, would be injured by the slight-/est moisture./Great care must be used whenever/it is removed from the Frame".
While he was working on the painting, Burne-Jones painted a miniature watercolour version in 1872 for William Morris's calligraphic manuscript of Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám .
The completed full-size watercolour was first exhibited at the Dudley Gallery at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly in 1873, alongside another watercolour, The Garden of the Hesperides (now in the Kunsthalle Hamburg). It was one of few works that Burne-Jones exhibited after he withdrew in high dudgeon from the Old Watercolour Society in 1870, over the negative reception of his watercolour of Phyllis and Demophoön (which included a full-frontal naked male figure and a portrait of his mistress Maria Zambaco), and before he started to exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery when it opened in 1877. It was an immediate critical and popular success. Burne-Jones himself rated it very highly, and it was praised by George du Maurier as "very stunning - almost the best thing he's done". Writing later, Julia Cartwright has said it was "one of the master's most perfect and beautiful creations", and Malcolm Bell called it "the most impressive of the painter's works, with its vague hint of an untold tragedy that haunts the memory".
Love Among the Ruins and The Garden of Hesperides were bought from the artist in 1873 by his patron the Manchester businessman Fredrick Craven. Love Among the Ruins was lent for exhibition at the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris, the inaugural exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1885, the Royal Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester in 1887, and for exhibition at the Guildhall, London and then at the Burne-Jones retrospective at the New Gallery both in 1892.
After Burne-Jones' 1884 painting King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid was a great success at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, Love Among the Ruins was lent for exhibition at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1893. While back in Paris, the prominent label warning that it was a watercolour and so susceptible to water damage was ignored, and an egg white wash was applied at the Goupil Gallery as a temporary varnish while the painting was being prepared for reproduction in photogravure.
The watercolour was thought to be damaged beyond repair, and remained in Burne-Jones' studio for 5 years, turned against the wall. At the suggestion of the owner and his former assistant Charles Fairfax Murray, Burne-Jones was eventually persuaded in 1898 to attempt a restoration, using ox gall to remove the egg white and then repainting the damaged head of the woman. The restoration was completed in May 1898, just a few weeks before his death in June 1898.
The work was sold at Christie's in London in March 1908 for 1,575 guineas. Acquired by the art dealer Agnew's, it passed through several collections before being sold at Sotheby's in London in May 1958 for 480 guineas, and it was acquired by Agnew's again. The original watercolour was auctioned again at Christie's in London in July 2013. Estimated at £3m to £5m, it sold for £14.8m, then the highest sale price for a Pre-Raphaelite work.
Distraught that his treasured watercolour was irretrievably damaged in Paris in 1893, Burne-Jones immediately painted a second version in oils, which was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1894. The oil painting measures 95.3 cm × 160 cm (37.5 in × 63.0 in). It is signed and dated, bottom right: "EBJ 1894". A hand-written note by Burne-Jones on the back of the painting reads: "This oil painting of ‘Love Among the Ruins’ is the same design as the one of the same name which I painted in watercolours, twenty one years ago, but which was destroyed in August last year. The present picture I began at once, and have made it as like as possible to the other, and have finished it this day. APRIL 23. 1894.Edward Burne Jones."
The second painting was in the collection of Mrs Robert Henry Benson by 1898. It was sold at Christie's in 1913, and acquired by Sir Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted. Inherited by his son Walter Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted, it was donated to the National Trust in 1948, since when it has been exhibited among the Arts and Crafts interior décor and Pre-Raphaelite paintings of Geoffrey Mander at Wightwick Manor, in Wolverhampton.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" modelled in part on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse.
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and William Holman Hunt. Burne-Jones worked with William Morris as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co in the design of decorative arts.
Henry Holiday was an English Victorian painter of historical genre and landscapes, also a stained-glass designer, illustrator, and sculptor. He was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, many of whom he knew.
Sir Philip William Burne-Jones, 2nd Baronet was the first child of the British Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones and his wife Georgiana Macdonald. He became a well-known painter in his own right, producing more than 60 paintings, including portraits, landscapes, and poetic fantasies.
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope was an English artist associated with Edward Burne-Jones and George Frederic Watts and often regarded as a second-wave pre-Raphaelite. His work is also studied within the context of Aestheticism and British Symbolism. As a painter, Stanhope worked in oil, watercolor, fresco, tempera, and mixed media. His subject matter was mythological, allegorical, biblical, and contemporary. Stanhope was born in Yorkshire, England, and died in Florence, Italy. He was the uncle and teacher of the painter Evelyn De Morgan.
The Beguiling of Merlin is a painting by the British Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones that was created between 1872 and 1877.
William Graham, Liberal MP for Glasgow, was a Scottish politician, wine merchant, cotton manufacturer and port shipper. He is remembered as a patron of Pre-Raphaelite artists like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and a collector of their works.
The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon is a painting by Edward Burne-Jones, started in 1881. The massive painting measures 279 cm × 650 cm, and is widely considered to be Burne-Jones's magnum opus.
The Star of Bethlehem is a painting in watercolour by Sir Edward Burne-Jones depicting the Adoration of the Magi with an angel holding the star of Bethlehem. It was commissioned by the Corporation of the City of Birmingham for its new Museum and Art Gallery in 1887, two years after Burne-Jones was elected Honorary President of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. At 101 1/8 x 152 inches, The Star of Bethlehem was the largest watercolour of the 19th century. It was completed in 1890 and was first exhibited in 1891.
Maria Zambaco, born Marie Terpsithea Cassavetti, was a British artist's model of Greek descent, favoured by the Pre-Raphaelites. She was also a sculptor.
King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid is an 1884 painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. The painting illustrates the story of 'The King and the Beggar-maid", which tells the legend of the prince Cophetua who fell in love at first sight with the beggar Penelophon. The tale was familiar to Burne-Jones through an Elizabethan ballad published in Bishop Thomas Percy's 1765 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and the sixteen-line poem The Beggar Maid by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Pygmalion and the Image is the second series of four oil paintings in the Pygmalion and Galatea series by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones which was completed between 1875 and 1878. The two collections may be seen below, in the Gallery, the first being now owned by Lord Lloyd Webber, and the second housed at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. This article deals with an appraisal of the second series.
The Merciful Knight is a watercolour by the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones which was completed in 1863 and is currently housed at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
The Flower Book by Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898) is a series of 38 round watercolours, each about six inches across, painted from 1882 to 1898. The paintings do not depict flowers; rather, they were inspired by the flowers' names. Burne-Jones called them "a series of illustrations to the Names of Flowers". "Not a single flower itself appears", according to his wife Georgiana. They were painted for his private pleasure, many while he was resting at his summer home in Rottingdean, and were described by his wife as the "most soothing piece of work that he ever did". In 1905 Georgiana, by then a widow, published a limited edition of high-quality colour facsimiles.
Georgiana, Lady Burne-Jones was a painter and engraver, and the second oldest of the Macdonald sisters. She was married to the Late Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, and was also the mother of painter Philip Burne-Jones, aunt of novelist Rudyard Kipling and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, confidante and friend of George Eliot, William Morris, and John Ruskin. She was a Trustee of the South London Gallery and was elected to the parish Council of Rottingdean, near Brighton in Sussex.
Hope is a late oil painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. It was painted on commission for Mrs. George Marston Whitin of Whitinsville, Massachusetts in 1896.
Gaetano Giuseppe Faostino Meo was an Italian-British artist's model, landscape painter, and a noted craftsman in mosaic and stained glass. His unpublished autobiography is a useful source for art historians of the Aesthetic Movement and Edwardian Era.
The Mill is an Aesthetic Movement, Renaissance-inspired oil on canvas painting completed by Edward Burne-Jones in 1882. The painting's main feature is three women dancing in front of a mill pond on a summer evening, with a vague wooded landscape spanning the background. The Mill is an oil on canvas painting. It is 91 centimetres (36 in) in height, and 197 centimetres (78 in) in width.
The Wheel of Fortune is an oil painting on canvas by the British Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, made from 1875 to 1883. The painting combines classical and medieval themes to present an allegory of the vagaries of life, a vanitas, with individual lives elevated or cast down as the wheel of fortune turns. Burne-Jones commented: "My wheel of Fortune is a true-to-life image; it comes to fetch each of us in turn, then it crushes us." The prime version has been in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris since 1980.