In Tate Britain
Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt 1833–1898
- Medium
- Graphite on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 323 × 222 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Bequeathed by A.N. MacNicholl 1916
- Reference
- A00066
Display caption
In 1872 Burne-Jones began work on the painting 'The Beguiling of Merlin', which was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877 (it is now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery). After revealing the secrets of his magic to Nimue, a lady of the lake, Merlin was imprisoned by her in a hawthorn tree. This was a story Burne-Jones had already illustrated in a mural design on the walls of the Oxford Union building and as a gouache for James Leathart. After 1870, when the crisis of Burne-Jones's involvement with Maria Zambaco had come to a head, the tale took on a deeply personal meaning for him. These studies record the early stages of Burne-Jones's search for a satisfactory form for the head of Merlin.
Gallery label, September 2004
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Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of a Man’s Head
1866 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of Seated Figure for ‘The Garden Court’ in the ‘Briar Rose’ Series
c.1873 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of Seated Figure for ‘The Garden Court’ in the ‘Briar Rose’ Series
c.1873 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of a Female Head for ‘The Hours’
c.1872 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of the Head of Tristram for ‘The Madness of Sir Tristram’
c.1862 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Roundel with the Head of a Warrior
c.1870–5 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Two Studies for the Head of the King in ‘King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid’
c.1880 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of the Head of a Female Attendant for ‘The Adoration of the Kings’
c.1861 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Head of a Man
c.1861 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study for ‘Pluto and Proserpine Listening to the Music of Orpheus’
c.1875 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Design for a Window: St James the Greater
date not known -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study of a Draped Male Figure. Verso: Man with Sword
c.1879 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Study for ‘Cinderella’
c.1863 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Clerk Saunders
1861 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt Sidonia von Bork 1560
1860
