Lot Essay
This charming early watercolour is the most important of a number of works executed by Burne-Jones in the early 1860s for the word-engravers George and Edward Dalziel. The Dalziels were currently commissioning designs from many artists, including Burne-Jones, for their Illustrated Bible, and Malcolm Bell, in his standard early monograph (loc. cit), states that the picture was itself 'intended' for this project. This has been repeated in more than one recent exhibition catalogue, but in fact it was not the case, Burne-Jones specifically referring to the picture in a letter to the Dalziels as 'your private commission' (Dalziel, op. cit., p. 254). Visiting his studio about 1862, the brothers had seen a 'Harmony in Blue', probably the watercolour Viridis of Milan (private collection), painted for Ruskin; and the Annunciation was to be a 'Harmony in Red'. This is an interesting early example of the concept of colour harmonies which, developed by Whistler and others, was to become so central to the Aesthetic Movement a decade or so later.
The picture was painted during the summer of 1863 when Burne-Jones was staying at 'Sandroyd', Spencer Stanhope's house at Cobham designed by Philip Webb. It was finished by October, but retouched before being exhibited at the Old Water-Colour Society the following April. Burne-Jones had been elected an Associate in February, together with G.P. Boyce, Fred Walker and E.S. Lundgren, and this was his first appearance. He sent in all four pictures, the others being The Merciful Knight (Birmingham), Cinderella (Boston) and Fair Rosamund (private collection). Although his work was much admired in his own circle, it had never been seen in public before (other than at the semi-private and now defunct Hogarth Club), and its startling originality baffled both his fellow-members, from whom he received much hostility, and the critics. 'We know not', wrote the conservative Art Journal 'what spectacles he can have put on to have gained a vision so astounding. Head Duccio of Siena, or Cimabue of Florence, walked into Pall Mall and hung upon these walls their mediaeval and archaic panels, surely no greater surprise could have been in reserve for the visitors to the gallery ... Fervour (the pictures) may possibly have for minds mortified to all natural sense of beauty, but to those who believe ... that truth is beauty, and beauty is truth, forms such as these are absolutely abhorrent'. Although the writer reserved his sternest criticism for The Merciful Knight, he could not resist some knockabout comments on The Annunciation. 'Here is a bedstead set above a garden, at which the Virgin kneels in her night-dress. The angel Gabriel in his flight appears to have been caught in an apple-tree; however, he manages just to look in at a kind of trap-door opening to tell his errand'.
F.G. Stephens, with his Pre-Raphaelites background, was naturally more sympathetic, writing in the Athenaeum that Burne-Jones's work 'require(s) to be tested by other standards than those proper to conventionally excellent pictures', and praising its 'romantic feeling, luxury of colour and poetic realisation of a youthful dream'. Even he, however, while 'enjoying to the utmost the colour of The Annunciation', felt bound to 'protest against the minauderie of the angel Gabriel, who, with the air of a French modiste, "presents" the lily to the amazed little Virgin. The frivolity of this picture is obvious. Mr Jones is capable of graver thoughts'.
The picture summarises the visual influences that Burne-Jones had experienced since he had adopted the artistic profession in 1856. The idea of raising the figures on a platform (also found in The Merciful Knight) was borrowed from his master Rossetti, while the general sense of quaintness reflects his knowledge of the early German masters. These had had a great impact on his elaborate pen and ink drawings of the late 1850s, and he had recently been studying them again, together with the modern designs of Ludwig Richter, in connection with his work for the Dalziels' Bible and other contributions to the current revival in the field of book illustration.
Italian sources too were important, as the Art Journal's critic surmised. There are echoes of Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua, first revealed to Burne-Jones through the woodcut reproductions published by the Arundel Society with descriptive notes by Ruskin in 1853, and subsequently seen by him when he was travelling with Ruskin in north Italy in 1862. The conception probably owes something to The Angel appearing to Anna, a composition which Ruskin greatly admired; while the picture's alternative title (The Flower of God) may have been inspired by 'Dante's simple and most exquisite synonym for angel, "Bird of God",' to which Ruskin refers in his notes. More important, as Burne-Jones's follower Edward Clifford suggested (loc. cit.), is the debt to Carpaccio's Dream of St Ursula in the Accademia in Venice. Leaving Ruskin in Milan in 1862, Burne-Jones and his wife had gone on alone to Venice, where Burne-Jones had fallen in love with Carpaccio. (This was many years, incidentally, before Ruskin 'discovered' the artist.) He had made innumerable copies from the St Ursula series and others (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), and many features of the Dream reappear in The Annunciation, not only the central motif of an angel appearing to a girl in a ray of light but the red bed furnishings, the open door and window, the book, the oriental rug and the slippers. Carpaccio's picture, in fact, was the link for Burne-Jones between the theme of the Annunciation and the idea of a 'Harmony in Red', being itself an 'annunciation' and having a strong element of red in its colour scheme. Yet there was one more picture which probably helped to shape The Annunciation, namely Van Eyck's Arnolfini's marriage portrait in the National Gallery. Here again Burne-Jones seems to have appropriated a number of elements: the bed with its red hangings, the floor-boards in sharp perspective, the open casement window, the oriental rug, the pair of shoes in the foreground. He must have noticed the curious coincidence that many of these motifs also appear in the Carpaccio, and deliberately used them to achieve a synthesis between Venetian and Flemish sources. There is one more piece of evidence to suggest that he was thinking along such lines. About the time that he painted The Annunciation he bought photographs of another set of paintings illustrating the legend of St Ursula, that of Memling at Bruges, hanging them in the sitting-room at 62 Great Russell Street, where he had rooms at this date.
A smaller version of the picture, also in watercolour, was painted for Burne-Jones's doctor, Dr Radcliffe, in 1869. This was with Agnew's in 1968
The picture was painted during the summer of 1863 when Burne-Jones was staying at 'Sandroyd', Spencer Stanhope's house at Cobham designed by Philip Webb. It was finished by October, but retouched before being exhibited at the Old Water-Colour Society the following April. Burne-Jones had been elected an Associate in February, together with G.P. Boyce, Fred Walker and E.S. Lundgren, and this was his first appearance. He sent in all four pictures, the others being The Merciful Knight (Birmingham), Cinderella (Boston) and Fair Rosamund (private collection). Although his work was much admired in his own circle, it had never been seen in public before (other than at the semi-private and now defunct Hogarth Club), and its startling originality baffled both his fellow-members, from whom he received much hostility, and the critics. 'We know not', wrote the conservative Art Journal 'what spectacles he can have put on to have gained a vision so astounding. Head Duccio of Siena, or Cimabue of Florence, walked into Pall Mall and hung upon these walls their mediaeval and archaic panels, surely no greater surprise could have been in reserve for the visitors to the gallery ... Fervour (the pictures) may possibly have for minds mortified to all natural sense of beauty, but to those who believe ... that truth is beauty, and beauty is truth, forms such as these are absolutely abhorrent'. Although the writer reserved his sternest criticism for The Merciful Knight, he could not resist some knockabout comments on The Annunciation. 'Here is a bedstead set above a garden, at which the Virgin kneels in her night-dress. The angel Gabriel in his flight appears to have been caught in an apple-tree; however, he manages just to look in at a kind of trap-door opening to tell his errand'.
F.G. Stephens, with his Pre-Raphaelites background, was naturally more sympathetic, writing in the Athenaeum that Burne-Jones's work 'require(s) to be tested by other standards than those proper to conventionally excellent pictures', and praising its 'romantic feeling, luxury of colour and poetic realisation of a youthful dream'. Even he, however, while 'enjoying to the utmost the colour of The Annunciation', felt bound to 'protest against the minauderie of the angel Gabriel, who, with the air of a French modiste, "presents" the lily to the amazed little Virgin. The frivolity of this picture is obvious. Mr Jones is capable of graver thoughts'.
The picture summarises the visual influences that Burne-Jones had experienced since he had adopted the artistic profession in 1856. The idea of raising the figures on a platform (also found in The Merciful Knight) was borrowed from his master Rossetti, while the general sense of quaintness reflects his knowledge of the early German masters. These had had a great impact on his elaborate pen and ink drawings of the late 1850s, and he had recently been studying them again, together with the modern designs of Ludwig Richter, in connection with his work for the Dalziels' Bible and other contributions to the current revival in the field of book illustration.
Italian sources too were important, as the Art Journal's critic surmised. There are echoes of Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua, first revealed to Burne-Jones through the woodcut reproductions published by the Arundel Society with descriptive notes by Ruskin in 1853, and subsequently seen by him when he was travelling with Ruskin in north Italy in 1862. The conception probably owes something to The Angel appearing to Anna, a composition which Ruskin greatly admired; while the picture's alternative title (The Flower of God) may have been inspired by 'Dante's simple and most exquisite synonym for angel, "Bird of God",' to which Ruskin refers in his notes. More important, as Burne-Jones's follower Edward Clifford suggested (loc. cit.), is the debt to Carpaccio's Dream of St Ursula in the Accademia in Venice. Leaving Ruskin in Milan in 1862, Burne-Jones and his wife had gone on alone to Venice, where Burne-Jones had fallen in love with Carpaccio. (This was many years, incidentally, before Ruskin 'discovered' the artist.) He had made innumerable copies from the St Ursula series and others (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), and many features of the Dream reappear in The Annunciation, not only the central motif of an angel appearing to a girl in a ray of light but the red bed furnishings, the open door and window, the book, the oriental rug and the slippers. Carpaccio's picture, in fact, was the link for Burne-Jones between the theme of the Annunciation and the idea of a 'Harmony in Red', being itself an 'annunciation' and having a strong element of red in its colour scheme. Yet there was one more picture which probably helped to shape The Annunciation, namely Van Eyck's Arnolfini's marriage portrait in the National Gallery. Here again Burne-Jones seems to have appropriated a number of elements: the bed with its red hangings, the floor-boards in sharp perspective, the open casement window, the oriental rug, the pair of shoes in the foreground. He must have noticed the curious coincidence that many of these motifs also appear in the Carpaccio, and deliberately used them to achieve a synthesis between Venetian and Flemish sources. There is one more piece of evidence to suggest that he was thinking along such lines. About the time that he painted The Annunciation he bought photographs of another set of paintings illustrating the legend of St Ursula, that of Memling at Bruges, hanging them in the sitting-room at 62 Great Russell Street, where he had rooms at this date.
A smaller version of the picture, also in watercolour, was painted for Burne-Jones's doctor, Dr Radcliffe, in 1869. This was with Agnew's in 1968