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Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., ARA, RWS (British, 1833-1898) Study of the head of Danaë for Danaë and The Tower of Brass and Danaë and the Brazen Tower image 1
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., ARA, RWS (British, 1833-1898) Study of the head of Danaë for Danaë and The Tower of Brass and Danaë and the Brazen Tower image 2
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., ARA, RWS (British, 1833-1898) Study of the head of Danaë for Danaë and The Tower of Brass and Danaë and the Brazen Tower image 3
Lot 69

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., ARA, RWS
(British, 1833-1898)
Study of the head of Danaë for Danaë and The Tower of Brass and Danaë and the Brazen Tower

20 March 2024, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £23,040 inc. premium

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Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., ARA, RWS (British, 1833-1898)

Study of the head of Danaë for Danaë and The Tower of Brass and Danaë and the Brazen Tower
signed with intitials and dated 'EBJ 1888' (lower right)
pencil
23.8 x 14.5cm (9 3/8 x 5 11/16in).

Footnotes

The sitter of the present lot was Marie Stillman (née Spartali). W. Graham Robertson observed that Stillman was 'Mrs Morris for Beginners...the two marvels had many points in common: the same lofty stature, the same long sweep of limb, the "neck like a tower," the night dark tresses and the eyes of mystery, yet Mrs Stillman's loveliness conformed to the standard of ancient Greece.'1

Spartali was known to Burne-Jones from the mid-1860s, when she purchased Cupid Discovering Psyche (British Museum Acc. no 1954,0508.8). An unfinished portrait exists begun circa 1880 and her features appear in a number of paintings including The Mill (1870-82, Victoria and Albert Museum), The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon (1881-1898, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico) and most notably in Danaë and the Brazen Tower (1887-1888, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow Art Gallery).

A similar study, made in 1885 (now in the collection of Amgueddfa Cymru, National Museum Wales, NM Acc. no NMW A 5480), is more like the head in the finished painting, but in the present drawing, made three years later, the artist has appeared to have saught a differing psychological state, with the lips slightly apart and the gaze more apprehensive, using softer shading. It is apparent from comparing the two studies that Burne-Jones preferred to return to the more meditative state of the earlier drawing.

1Walford Graham Robertson, Time Was: the Reminiscences of W. Graham Robertson, 1931, p 95.

We are grateful to the Committee of the Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonne Foundation for their assistance in cataloguing this lot. The work is listed in the Burne-Jones catalogue, www.eb-j.org.

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