Edward’s enthusiasm for all things medieval was contagious and it was he and Morris who, on their trips to London before 1856, encouraged Rossetti to research and absorb its influence by visiting the British Museum together to study the manuscripts there. In 1857, Edward was indirectly associated with the short lived Medieval Society which was attempting to make a collection of medieval artefacts and manuscripts. Amongst its members were Rossetti and his brother William, Holman Hunt, Madox Brown Morris and William Burges . Illuminated manuscripts chiefly function as decoration to the page; missal artists have no use for a depth of field and so fill in the spaces between figures with flat abstract pattern. Both Rossetti and Burne-Jones explored this two dimensionality and decorative profusion in their drawings and watercolours of the late 1850s. As has been noted, his familiarity with Morte D’Arthur is well recorded, yet in all the later literature concerning Burne-Jones there are only two other references of actual medieval or renaissance works he is known to have studied: Roman de la Rose in the British Museum mentioned earlier and a copy of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (fig. 66) 13 which he owned and which served as an example for The Car of Love (fig. 65). 13. Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Poliphilo's Strife of Love in a Dream), first published by Aldus Manutius in Venice 1499. Burne-Jones owned a copy (acquired before 1864) which had a considerable impact on his art. First, it is extremely erotic in content; second, he based the design and layout of the proposed illustrations to Morris’s Earthly Paradise upon it; and third, the illustrations provided a source for later paintings, for instance, The Passing of Venus (The Junior Common Room, Exeter College, Oxford), The Car of Love (Victoria & Albert Museum) and Poesis and Musica (both private collections). There are a number of references to Burne-Jones working on the painting in the manuscript notes of conversations heard in the Studio by T M Rooke as follows:- October 25th 1895: Speaking of Love's Wayfaring "I have a hope there'll be no part shirked in it. Don't like parts of pictures looking as if no trouble had been taken over them" January 13th 1896: EBJ Painting first man in "Car of Love" December 14th 1896: Painting "Love's Wayfaring"
The Car of Love was given to the V&A by Lady Burne-Jones in 1909. Historical significance: Edward Burne-Jones was the leading figure in the second phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. His paintings of subjects from medieval legend and Classical mythology and his designs for stained glass, tapestry and many other media played an important part in the Aesthetic Movement and the history of international Symbolism. The triumphal procession of Love was a common theme in Medieval and Renaissance literature and art. However, the specific basis of Burne-Jones's composition in The Car of Loveis a long allegorical poem by the 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch, the Trionfior Triumphs. The poet has a vision of a number of victorious pageants or triumphal processions, in which historical, Biblical or mythological figures take part. The first triumph is that of Love over the human heart; the next is Chastity, which triumphs over Love; followed in turn by Death, Fame, Time, and finally Eternity, which triumphs over all. In this unfinished painting Burne-Jones shows Cupid, the god of love, being pulled on a great chariot down a narrow city street by a crowd of men and women. Some laugh, others appear anguished. The architectural background is based on the narrow streets of Medieval Siena. Burne-Jones first conceived the idea for The Car of Lovein 1871 or 1872, but work on the large painting in the V&A did not begin until the early 1890s. It was left incomplete at Burne-Jones's death in 1898. One large design (339.1 x 211.2 cm) in pastel and charcoal for The Car of Loveis in the Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand (museum number 1924/5/1; see exhibition catalogue: Auckland City Art Gallery, British Taste in the Nineteenth Century,May 1962, no.10, p.9). This design was presented to Auckland Art Gallery in 1924 by Viscount Leverhulme. There are also three black chalk figure studies for the painting in Auckland (museum numbers 1956/22/1; 1956/22/2; 1956/22/3). An earlier design, probably the sketch referred to in Memorials,pp. 191-2, as 'a black rough charcoal thing done in a heat one evening', is in Falmouth Art Gallery (charcoal on paper stuck to canvas, 162 x 89cm, FAMAG: 1923.19; see image in object file). This design shows Burne-Jones's original concept of the composition, in which the procession takes place in a narrow gorge, with towering rocks on either side and a glimpse of the sea in the background. The streets of medieval Siena replaced this setting in the final composition. Two head studies for The Car of Loveare in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (1898P48 (1880) and 1898P49 (1875)). Another head study, signed 'E.B.J.', dated 1895, and inscribed (apparently by the artist) 'for the CAR of LOVE' was offered for sale at TEFAF Maastricht and the Salon du Dessin in Paris in 2013. Photographs and correspondence in V&A object file.
1872 This year I have four subjects which above all others I desire to paint, and count my chief designs, for some years to come. The Chariot of Love - to be painted life size. The Vision of Britomart in 3 pictures also life size. The Sirens - small life size. and a picture of the beginning of the world - with Pan and Echo and sylvan gods, and a forest full of centaurs and a wild background of woods, mountains and rivers - upon these four subjects all my leisure time will be spent."