Two subjects, Venus Concordia and Venus Discordia, appear in the Story of Troy scheme as predella panels flanking The Feast of Peleus (cat. no. 51). The two designs in pencil begun in 1871 fall into the relatively rare category of carefully finished presentation drawings, comparable in detail and execution with the Saint George series made six years ear- lier (cat. nos. 32, 35, 36). According to his own record of works, Burne-Jones began both these large paintings in 1872, concentrating on Venus Discordia in the following year. With such a mass of work soon to follow, however, including the Briar Rose and Perseus series, little serious further work can have been undertaken. Only in the 1890s was he able to return to some of the larger canvases begun so enthusiastically in this extraordinary period of fertile invention. That there is no significant change in composition to Venus Discordia from the drawing of 1871 may suggest that most of what we see is work of 1873; it would have been out of charac- ter for Burne-Jones to resist making improvements to concepts he might have considered immature. The drawing represents the violent consequences of baser human passions, represent- ed by the four Vices (Anger, Envy, Suspicion, and Strife). The struggling male nudes carry clear echoes of the kind of early Italian Renaissance art in which Burne-Jones was totally absorbed at this date. The background frieze of figures is rem- iniscent of the celebrated engraving Battle of the Nudes (ca. 1465), by Antonio Pollaiuolo. There is a separate pencil drawing of the figure of Venus, almost identical in pose but with her head cupped in her left hand. 1 1. Christie's, November 13, 1992, lot 102
This drawing, the pair to Venus Concordia, corresponds closely to the right predella panel of the unfinished Troy Triptych at Birmingham. In keeping with the theme of the Trojan War, it shows the divisive effects of love, with Venus presiding over a scene of carnage inspired by the four vices, Anger, Envy, Suspicion and Strife, whose names are written in Latin on the drawing. It is one of Burne-Jones's most Italianate conceptions, showing the influence of Pollaiuolo, Signorelli and Michelangelo. In 1871, he had visited Italy in search of artistic reassurance and studied these artists there; in the summer of that year, he had come close to a quarrel about them with Ruskin, who attacked Michelangelo in a lecture at Oxford.Like its pair Venus Concordia, Venus Discordia was in the collection of Burne-Jones's brother-in-law, Sir Edward John Poynter; both were included in his studio sale in 1920. Burne Jones began a large oil painting of the composition in 1872, but it remained unfinished and is now in the National Museum of Wales.