Edward Burne Jones (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) The Briar Rose Series
Edward Burne-Jones ( Birmingham, 28.8. 1833 – London, 17.6.1898)
fordshire
Like many of Burne-Jones' major projects, the evolution of the Briar Rose cycle was complex. The cycle began life as tiles commissioned in the mid-1860s from Morris & Co. by, among others, the artist Myles Birket Foster, (now in the Victoria & Albert Museum), or Sir John Scott (Now in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford)). In August 1869, the most important patron of Burne-Jones' middle years, the Glasgow businessman and MP, William Graham, asked the artist to paint 'the Sleeping Princess Knights enchanted', and with this encouragement, Burne-Jones seems to have first contemplated expanding the series to larger oil paintings.
Burne-Jones produced one scene, The Briar Wood almost immediately, but seems not to have offered it to Graham, but possibly to Murray Marks. Instead, he began work on a set of three paintings on the same theme, but on a slightly smaller scale. The result was the so-called 'small Briar Rose' series, painted 1871 and 1873, which was bought by Graham and is now in the Museo de Arte, Ponce, in Puerto Rico. The other scenes treated were The Council Chamber and The Rose Bower. In 1871 Burne-Jones also painted a small version of The Rose Bower for Murray Marks.
About 1873, Burne-Jones began considering expanding the cycle on to canvases up to 100in long. The new project was offered to Graham, but he had to refuse it for lack of space. The Burne-Jones work record for 1874 and 1875 mentions work on this second series, but Burne-Jones does not seem to have taken it up in earnest again until 1884.
In 1888 Burne-Jones painted a new versión of The Rose Bower, given as a wedding present to his daughter Margaret.
Burne-Jones seems to have been dissatisfied with what he produced and started again on fresh canvases. Finishing the series to his satisfaction took from the autumn of 1885 to April 1890. They were sold to Lord Faringdon, who also owned such major Burne-Jones's as The Days of Creation. Burne-Jones was invited to Buscot to see the pictures and proposed extending the frames of the original four canvases to accommodate two further small canvases and eight slips which, with William Morris' verses inscribed at the base of the main frame, would give continuity to the series.
In his final years, Burne-Jones spent much time making marketable material in his studio. He completed the canvases he had abandoned when working on the Buscot Park series. They were sold through Agnew's and have since been dispersed. The third set comprises The Garden Court (Bristol City Art Gallery), The Council Chamber (Delaware Art Gallery, Wilmington) and The Rose Bower (Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin).