Add to Collection

Add this item to an existing or new collection.
Harvard Art Museums
Incorrect Username, Email, or Password
This object does not yet have a description.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.453
People
Edward Burne-Jones, British (Birmingham, England 1833 - 1898 London, England)
Frame by Agnew
Title
Venus Epithalamia
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1871
Culture
British
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/298025

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Watercolor and gouache, metallic gold paint, and varnish on linen prepared with Chinese white
Dimensions
37.5 x 26.9 cm (14 3/4 x 10 9/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.l.: E.B.J. MDCCCLXXI (on pedestal)
  • inscription: lr on cartouche: VENUS EPITHALAMIA
  • inscription: on back of wooden panel, graphite: This to be covered / with cloth prepared with / Chinese white for / Water Colour

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Commissioned from the artist by Euphrosyne Cassavetti as a wedding gift for Marie Spartali (Stillman), 1871; Marie Spartali Stillman, until 1905; Thomas Agnew and Sons, London, 1905; purchased from them by Baron de Turckheim; his sale, Christie's, London, June 9, 1911, no. 87 (£304 10s.); purchased at that sale by Charles Fairfax Murray; acquired from him by Grenville L. Winthrop, July 29, 1912 (£500); his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.453
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Publication History

  • Malcolm Bell, Sir Edward Burne-Jones: A Record and Review, Bell (London and New York, 1894), pp. 42, 102
  • Paintings and Drawings of the Pre-Raphaelites and their Circle, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1946), no. 18
  • John Christian, "Burne-Jones Studies", The Burlington Magazine (February 1973), vol. 115, p. 106
  • Martin Harrison and Bill Waters, Burne-Jones, G. P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY, 1973), pg. 97
  • A.M. Hammacher, Phantoms of the Imagination: Fantasy in Art and Literature from Blake to Dali, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1981), p. 161 and repr. fig. 143
  • Christopher Wood, Olympian Dreamers: Victorian Classical Painters 1860-1914, Constable (London, England, 1983), fig. 5 (p. 180), p. 181
  • Judith A. Neiswander, "Imaginative Beauty and Decorative Delight: Two American Collections of the Pre-Raphaelites", Apollo (March 1984), vol. CXIX, no. 265, p. 203
  • Eileen Cassavetti, "The Fatal Meeting and the Fruitful Passion", Antique Collector (March 1989), 60, no. 3, pp. 42, 44
  • Christopher Wood, Burne-Jones: The Life and Works of Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England, 1998), repr. p. 50
  • Chikashi Kitazaki and Mina Oya, ed., Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., National Museum of Western Art (Ueno, 2002), cat. no. 60, repr. (color)
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), cat. no. 157, repr. (color)

Exhibition History

  • Winter Exhibition of the Works of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, New Gallery, London
  • Paintings and Drawings of the Pre-Raphaelites and their Circle, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/08/1946 - 06/01/1946
  • Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 09/14/2002 - 12/08/2002
  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • 32Q: 2130 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 04/07/2015 - 11/10/2015

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu