SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. | STUDIES FOR THE STORY OF PSYCHE

Given by the artist to Charles Eliot Norton, Boston and thence by descent to his daughter Elizabeth, by whom donated to a charity auction;

Private collection, USA

Burne-Jones made forty-five wood engravings illustrating the story of Cupid and Psyche for a lavish publication of William Morris' The Earthly Paradise, which was ultimately abandoned (many are in the collection at Birmingham City Art Gallery). Burne-Jones’ assistant, Charles Fairfax Murray, describes another group of drawings for the project (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford): ' A series of designs for the Story of Cupid & Psyche illustrating the 'Earthly Paradise' mounted in a volume. The drawings presented by Mr Ruskin to the Oxford University [in the collection of the Ashmolean] are on tracing paper and in every respect similar in technique to the designs for the 'Hill of Venus' and 'Pygmalion' have exhibited. Once the main comp[osition] was settled the design was forwarded and completed by successive tracings enabling the artist to correct or develop the designs with comparatively trifling labour. The process as far as we know was only used by the artist for the drawings prepared for the engravings for the Earthly Paradise and was not his usual practice.' These four drawings were given to Burne-Jones' friend Charles Eliot Norton, a Harvard professor and editor of North American Review.