Confusion reigns over the subject of this painting. The Fitzwilliam work list for 1868 has the entry " began in oil First Marriage" and there is no suggestion of a work of this nature bearing the title of Pyramus and Thisbe. A work of that name in the Birkenhead Art Gallery does not relate, neither does the tile design of 1864. Malcom Bell (1898) describes the painting with the title "The First Marriage" as Love enthroned above a man and a woman, which was never finished." This refers to the oil belonging to the Tate gallery, which is possibly the painting in the Fitzwiliam list. Bell could equally be confused as there exists an oil version of the present watercolour subject and this may in fact be the subject of the entry in the work list. This composition may be from a rejected design for The Earthy Paradise. A composition sketch is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum Acc no E.2892-1927
"The First Marriage" is an important and virtually unknown early watercolour by Burne-Jones, which demonstrates the artist's wonderful sense of design and poetic conception at this time of his life when his bonds with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were most strong. The early work of Burne-Jones has an intimacy and charm which is to a certain degree lost in the much more hard-edged and meticulous manner of his later pictures. The paintings of the late 1850s and 1860s have an energy and beauty which reflects the verve of the young artist and far from being juvenile sketches, they perfectly embody the intentions of arguably the most influential artist of the nineteenth Century. It would seem that "The First Marriage" was made in 1865, a year in which several of his most important works of this period were painted, including the first watercolour versions of "Le Chant d'Amour" (Museum of Fine Art, Boston) and "Green Summer" (private collection). At the Pall Mall Gallery in 1865 Burne-Jones exhibited a group of pictures which revealed his genius as a painter. The most prominent of these pictures were "Green Summer" and "Le Chant d'Amour", "Astrologia" and "Theophlus and the Angel", each picture being more fresh and vibrant that the next. These pictures demonstrate the influence that the early work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti had upon Burne-Jones in the beautiful simplicity of their design and the harmony of the colouring. Rossetti's influence can also be found in "The First Marriage" in which the two lovers turned inwards to each other in profile, recall the knights and maidens of Rossetti's watercolours of the 1850s. This small watercolour has all the intensity of Burne-Jones' best compositions of this period. Striking for it's balance and arrangement, it owes much to Burne-Jones' skill as a designer of stained glass. The symmetrical arrangement of the two lovers flanking the winged figure of Eros, have a monumental grace which is both powerful and extraordinarily sensitive. "The First Marriage" relates closely to two highly important series of pictures, depicting Saint George and the Dragon and Cupid and Psyche. The female figure in "The First Marriage" is very close in conception to the figure of Princess Sabra in Burne-Jones' famous painting from the former series. "The King's Daughter" (Musee D'Orsay, Paris), with the heavy folds of her garments and beautiful head in profile. the figure of Love is closer to Burne-Jones conception of the same god in the Cupid and Psyche series, garlanded and eternally beautiful. The mid 1860s were particularly significant years for Burne-Jones, in which he grew rapidly to be a talented young artist and on February 8h 1864, he was elected an Associate of the Society of Painters in Watercolour. His artistic output over the next few years was colossal and staggering in both quality and ambition. In 1868, Burne-Jones most important patron, the Liverpool shipping mercer William Graham, commissioned oil versions of three pictures designed in 1865, "Green Summer" (sold in these rooms, June 19th, 1990.lot 32), "Le Chant d@Amour" (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and an oil version of "The First Marriage", which was never completed and apparently exists only in fragments (private collection). According to Malcom Bell, the oil version was slightly different, "Love enthroned above a man and a woman" (Malcom Bell, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, A Record and R3eview, 1899, pg.40). "The First Marriage" and "Le Chant D'Amour" have a virtually identical subject, treated in a very different manner. The subject is the power of true love, the type of love which bards and poets speak of. "Le Chant D'Amour" appears to depict two Medieval Italian lovers,whereas the title "The First Marriage" suggests hat it depicts Hephaestos the Titan and his misled wife, Pandora, the first woman of Greek mythology. Eros, or Cupid appears in both pictures, painted remarkably similarly, his head garlanded with roses and his eyes veiled to signify the blindness of love. A painting of 1861 entitled "Blind Love" depicted a blind-folded Eros groping through the night streets in search of an open doorway. The influence that Burne-Jones work was to have upon other artist is, particularly his younger admirer and friend Simeon Solomon, is easy to understand by comparing this painting with pictures by Solomon in which the human figure is painted with an enigmatic monumentality to convey Symbolist meaning. "The First Marriage" is one of the earliest Symbolist pictures by the most important painter of the entire movement, both in Britain an in a wider European context. Sotheby's June 2003