Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries
Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries
Property from a British Private Collection
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., A.R.A., R.W.S
Two pages of studies for ‘The Golden Stairs’, (two studies of a baby on the verso of one of the sheets)
Auction Closed
July 5, 10:16 AM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a British Private Collection
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., A.R.A., R.W.S
Birmingham 1833 - 1898 London
Two pages of studies for ‘The Golden Stairs’, (two studies of a baby on the verso of one of the sheets)
Pencil
Each 255 by 140 mm
thence by descent to the present owner
These drawings relate to the figure at the top of the stairs on the extreme left, holding a zither and to the fifth figure from the top, looking backwards. They are both essentially studies of drapery, but the second drawing depicts the most individual likeness of the whole group. The model for this drawing was probably Miss Edith Gellibrand, a comic actress and mezzo soprano who performed with the stage-name Edith Chester. She was born in Arkhangel in Russia in 1864 the daughter of a diplomat who was the former Advocate General of Madras. It is likely that she posed for the painting in the late 1870s or even 1880 when Burne-Jones wrote to George Howard seeking ‘a nice innocent damsel or two’ to fill up ‘the staircase picture’1
1 Thomas Matthews Rooke, quoted in Penelope Fitzgerald, Edward Burne-Jones – A Biography, 1975, p. 183.