European & British Art
European & British Art
Property from a Canadian Private Collection
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., A.R.A., R.W.S.
Orpheus and his Lute; Eurydice Bitten by a Serpent; Orpheus and Eurydice Reunited; Orpheus Pursued by Furies
Lot Closed
July 14, 02:03 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Canadian Private Collection
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., A.R.A., R.W.S.
British
1833 - 1898
Orpheus and his Lute; Eurydice Bitten by a Serpent; Orpheus and Eurydice Reunited; Orpheus Pursued by Furies
all watercolour with bodycolour, circular
each 21cm., 8¼in. diameter
Framed: 76 by 76cm., 30 by 30in.
Abbot & Holder, London
Purchased from the above by the grandparents of the present owner in 1951
Art Gallery of Ontario, The Earthly Paradise: Arts and Crafts by William Morris and His Circle from Canadian Collections, 1994
According to Burne-Jones’ account books, these drawings were made in 1872, seven years before Burne-Jones designed the circular roundels for the exterior of a famous piano made for his most loyal patron William Graham. Burne-Jones chose a suitably musical subject for the imagery, depicting the story of the musician Orpheus, who ventured to the Underworld to plead with Pluto and Proserpine for life to be restored to his wife Eurydice, who had been killed by a snake-bite. There are a set of ten pencil designs for the piano panels at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Of the earlier gouache designs, there are examples at Tate and in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and two more are known, Orpheus Losing Eurydice and Orpheus Encountering Sisyphus (Christie’s, London, 7 June 2001, lot 24 and 25).
We are grateful to William Waters and The Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonné Foundation for information used in this catalogue note.