Two subjects from medieval romance

These mysterious and jewel-like watercolours are in the ultra-medieval or 'Froissartian' style, emphasising bright colours and flat heraldic pattern, that Rossetti and his followers explored in the late 1850s. As so often with Burne-Jones, it is not clear if the watercolours should be read as paintings or decorative designs; if the latter, they could be for tiles.

The subjects have not been identified but the imagery of the lower composition looks back to Rossetti's watercolour Arthur's Tomb (1855; British Museum) and anticipates a cartoon representing the tomb of Tristram and Iseult that Burne-Jones made for stained glass in 1862 (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery). In our design the effigies seem to lie on a brick tomb surrounded by water.