The Garden Court (1870-1875)

Burne-Jones, Edward (1833-1898)

The Garden Court
18701875
Graphite and watercolor, heightened with white gouache, on paper, 32.3 x 60.2 cm
Cleveland Museum of ArtCleveland

Art historian Andrea Wolk Rager has interpreted this drawing as related to Edward Burne-Jones‘s socialist beliefs, identifying the weaver at right in the work as a personification of artistic labor, dormant in industrialized Victorian society. The story of Briar Rose (known popularly as “Sleeping Beauty”) occupied Edward Burne-Jones on and off for much of his career. He completed three related sets of paintings of the subject over a 30-year period. This drawing probably relates to the first series, now in the Museo de Arte in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Here, vines twist in arabesques against a flat, chartreuse background, as though ensnaring the six servants asleep at a loom and well. (CMA)

Compare:

Burne-Jones, Edward (1833-1898)
The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon
18811898
Museo de Arte de PoncePonce

 

 

Burne-Jones, Edward (1833-1898)
The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon
c.1881
Museo de Arte de PoncePonce