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Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898), the son of a humble Birmingham picture framer, became perhaps the most exceptional and versatile figure of the English Aesthetic movement. He excelled as a painter, draughtsman, designer of furniture, stained glass, and tapestry, and succeeded in spreading his reputation well beyond England to the Continent and America. Nowhere is this more evident than in Burne-Jones’s Briar Rose paintings, an extraordinary series of works, which occupied the artist for more than half his lifetime. In 1864, Burne-Jones was commissioned to design a set of ceramic tiles for artist Myles Birket Foster’s house, The Hill, in Witley, Surrey. The theme was to be the Briar Rose, the “Sleeping Beauty” story derived from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1842 poem, The Day-dream, which evoked England’s medieval past.

“She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells,” wrote Tennyson, “a perfect form in perfect rest.” These lines perfectly paralleled the Aesthetic aims of Burne-Jones, and of his friend William Morris, to create “Art for art’s sake”—an ideal object, with no greater purpose than its own beauty, displayed within a setting distinctly suited to itself. These extraordinary, vibrant tiles, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, evidently pleased Burne-Jones, as he returned to the theme in 1869, with three small-format Briar Rose paintings. Four years later, Burne-Jones revisited the subject yet again with a larger scale series of paintings for the saloon at Buscot Park, Faringdon.

Join Country Life and Vanity Fair contributor Patrick Monahan to discover the Sleeping Beauties of one of Victorian England’s artistic geniuses—paintings which echo a distant, enchanted past.

Patrick Monahan

Patrick Monahan is a writer and independent art advisor, specializing in British paintings, drawings, and sculpture from the eighteenth century to the present. A native New Yorker, he is consulted by collectors and museums on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico.
His written work appears in Country Life and Vanity Fair, as well as in the exhibition catalogue “Flaming June: the making of an icon,” Leighton House, London, 2016. He holds an Mphil from the University of Cambridge as well as a BA from the University of Chicago, both in art history. He lives and works in New York City, with regular visits to London.

Instagram: @thepatrickmonahan

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