The Love Song (1868-1877)

Burne-Jones, Edward (1833-1898)

The Love Song
18681877
Oil on canvas, 114.3 x 155.9 cm
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York

Burne-Jones associated this painting with a refrain from a French folk ballad: “Alas, I know a love song, / Sad or happy, each in turn.” Cupid, his arrows slung over his shoulder, works the bellows on the portative organ. This picture, which took nine years to complete, unites inspirations that shaped Burne-Jones’s art: medievalism, Italian Renaissance painting, romance, beauty, and music. (MET)