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Lot Essay
The design shows Cupid, blindfolded, groping his way down a street and seeking a house to enter. Burne-Jones had treated this idea in a watercolour of 1861-2 (private collection), but according to his widow in her Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones (1904, vol.1, p.257), he 'always meant to carry (it) out on a larger scale in oils'. In fact an oil was begun in the late 1860s for his patron William Graham, although only a fragment, representing Cupid's torso, survives (sold Christie's, London, 25 June 1998, lot 321, illustrated in catalogue).
The present watercolour, which differs in composition from the early version, seems to date from about 1890, and may be a sketch made when Burne-Jones was thinking of resuming work on the oil. The background is reminiscent of that of 'The Car of Love' (Victoria and Albert Museum), a colossal canvas on a related theme that he began that year and left unfinished at his death in 1898.
The present watercolour, which differs in composition from the early version, seems to date from about 1890, and may be a sketch made when Burne-Jones was thinking of resuming work on the oil. The background is reminiscent of that of 'The Car of Love' (Victoria and Albert Museum), a colossal canvas on a related theme that he began that year and left unfinished at his death in 1898.