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拍品專文
The present drawing is a study for the head of Nimue in Burne-Jones's celebrated painting The Beguiling of Merlin (1874, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, fig. 1). It was one of a group of eight works Burne-Jones exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition in 1877 with which he made his triumphant public reappearance. The picture was commissioned by Frederick Leyland for the famous interior he created at 49 Prince's Gate (see lot 108).
Although the present drawing is dated 1870 it seems likely that Burne-Jones has misdated the work, as he sometimes did when exhibiting works some time after their execution. The picture was begun in 1872, and is dated 1874, though he worked on it extensively in 1875, finishing it in 1877. In 1878 it was sent to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the first time Burne-Jones' work had been seen abroad to critical, if not public, acclaim.
Merlin and Nimue was one of Burne-Jones' favourite Arthurian themes. He discovered a copy of the 1817 edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur in a Birmingham bookshop in 1855, and his first opportunity to paint an Arthurian subject was in a mural for the old Debating Hall of the Oxford Union in 1857. He also executed a watercolour of the same subject in 1861 (Victoria & Albert Museum, London). The Beguiling of Merlin is based on the late Medieval French text Roman de Merlin. Tennyson had already treated the subject in the Idylls of the King (1859). Merlin was so in love with Nimiane [sic] that at her request he taught her all his magic skills, which she wrote down and mastered even though he knew that she would use them against him to capture him in a magic tower, from which he could never leave. The picture depicts the moment when Nimue has lulled the magician to his doom. The Grosvenor Gallery catalogue contained the following lines from the text:
'...and whan she felt that he was on slepe she a-roos softly,
and made a cerne [circle] with hir wymply all a-boute the bussh.'
The model for Nimue was Maria Zambaco with whom Burne-Jones conducted a passionate affair. As John Christian notes 'Maria offered him a combination of physical beauty and sexual generosity that brought a new dimension to his life, remained unique in his emotional experience, and had an incalculable impact on his art.' Maria was Greek by birth. Her maiden name was Cassavetti and she was a cousin of the Ionides, the large, affluent Anglo-Greek family which plays such a prominent role in the annals of Victorian art. In 1861 she married Demetrius Zambaco, a doctor serving the Greek community in Paris, but four years later, having borne him two children, she left him and returned with her offspring to London. There at the age of twenty-three she was introduced to Burne-Jones, her senior by ten years. Their affair was devastating to both parties.
Their relationship was often reflected in a symbolic way in Burne-Jones' work. The theme in the present picture, just as in Love among the Ruins (Christie's, London, 11 July 2013, lot 3), which was painted during the same period, and Phyllis and Demophoön (1870, Birmingham), also completed for Leyland, illustrates the power of love and its enchantment upon two people. In a letter of 1893 to Helen Mary Gaskell he wrote 'The head of Nimue in the picture called The Enchanting of Merlin was painted from the same poor traitor...' (P. Fitzgerald, Edward Burne Jones, London, 1975, p. 150). Burne-Jones encountered some difficulty in finding the right head for Merlin, but at Rossetti's suggestion approached the American painter and journalist William James Stillman (1828-1901), who married the Greek beauty and artist Maria Spartali Stillman (1844-1927).
Stylistically The Beguiling of Merlin marks a significant point in Burne-Jones's artistic development. The picture was conceived at a moment when the influence of Italian art on Burne-Jones was reaching its zenith. It was begun just after his third visit to Italy in 1871 and had an enormous impact on his work in terms of style, inventiveness and productivity. The present drawing is a tour de force, and the strong pencil lines have a Florentine feel to them. The sinewy twisting boughs of the hawthorn and the writhing linear forms of the drapery are echoed in the snakes entwined on Nimue's head. The critic F.G. Stephens wrote in his review of the Grosvenor Gallery's exhibition 'Nimue's face in its snaky intensity of malice is marvellous...' (Athenaeum, 5 May 1877, p. 584).
Although the present drawing is dated 1870 it seems likely that Burne-Jones has misdated the work, as he sometimes did when exhibiting works some time after their execution. The picture was begun in 1872, and is dated 1874, though he worked on it extensively in 1875, finishing it in 1877. In 1878 it was sent to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the first time Burne-Jones' work had been seen abroad to critical, if not public, acclaim.
Merlin and Nimue was one of Burne-Jones' favourite Arthurian themes. He discovered a copy of the 1817 edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur in a Birmingham bookshop in 1855, and his first opportunity to paint an Arthurian subject was in a mural for the old Debating Hall of the Oxford Union in 1857. He also executed a watercolour of the same subject in 1861 (Victoria & Albert Museum, London). The Beguiling of Merlin is based on the late Medieval French text Roman de Merlin. Tennyson had already treated the subject in the Idylls of the King (1859). Merlin was so in love with Nimiane [sic] that at her request he taught her all his magic skills, which she wrote down and mastered even though he knew that she would use them against him to capture him in a magic tower, from which he could never leave. The picture depicts the moment when Nimue has lulled the magician to his doom. The Grosvenor Gallery catalogue contained the following lines from the text:
'...and whan she felt that he was on slepe she a-roos softly,
and made a cerne [circle] with hir wymply all a-boute the bussh.'
The model for Nimue was Maria Zambaco with whom Burne-Jones conducted a passionate affair. As John Christian notes 'Maria offered him a combination of physical beauty and sexual generosity that brought a new dimension to his life, remained unique in his emotional experience, and had an incalculable impact on his art.' Maria was Greek by birth. Her maiden name was Cassavetti and she was a cousin of the Ionides, the large, affluent Anglo-Greek family which plays such a prominent role in the annals of Victorian art. In 1861 she married Demetrius Zambaco, a doctor serving the Greek community in Paris, but four years later, having borne him two children, she left him and returned with her offspring to London. There at the age of twenty-three she was introduced to Burne-Jones, her senior by ten years. Their affair was devastating to both parties.
Their relationship was often reflected in a symbolic way in Burne-Jones' work. The theme in the present picture, just as in Love among the Ruins (Christie's, London, 11 July 2013, lot 3), which was painted during the same period, and Phyllis and Demophoön (1870, Birmingham), also completed for Leyland, illustrates the power of love and its enchantment upon two people. In a letter of 1893 to Helen Mary Gaskell he wrote 'The head of Nimue in the picture called The Enchanting of Merlin was painted from the same poor traitor...' (P. Fitzgerald, Edward Burne Jones, London, 1975, p. 150). Burne-Jones encountered some difficulty in finding the right head for Merlin, but at Rossetti's suggestion approached the American painter and journalist William James Stillman (1828-1901), who married the Greek beauty and artist Maria Spartali Stillman (1844-1927).
Stylistically The Beguiling of Merlin marks a significant point in Burne-Jones's artistic development. The picture was conceived at a moment when the influence of Italian art on Burne-Jones was reaching its zenith. It was begun just after his third visit to Italy in 1871 and had an enormous impact on his work in terms of style, inventiveness and productivity. The present drawing is a tour de force, and the strong pencil lines have a Florentine feel to them. The sinewy twisting boughs of the hawthorn and the writhing linear forms of the drapery are echoed in the snakes entwined on Nimue's head. The critic F.G. Stephens wrote in his review of the Grosvenor Gallery's exhibition 'Nimue's face in its snaky intensity of malice is marvellous...' (Athenaeum, 5 May 1877, p. 584).