Fitzwilliam Work list 1861 King Rene's honey moon - Graham Garnet says provenance Foster's sale, 1 May 1876 (lot 61), bt Agnew (8157) for WG £44 2s; WG 110: £125/sale 143, bt Clifford 200 gns; Fine Art Society, 1973; PRIVATE COLLECTION In a letter to Burne-Jones of March 3 1871 William Graham mentions "René's Honeymoon" which indicates that he was in possession of a work at that date, which conflicts with Garnett's statement that Graham bought the painting in the Birket Foster sale of 1876. There is some confusion between the stained glass version which was owned by Birket Foster and this watercolour. Lot 143 in the Graham sale "King René's Honeymoon" was bought by Edward Clifford for 200 guineas. This was a large sum for a single watercolour of 49.5cms by 37.1 cms, it is therefore possible that under the name of the painting both King Rene subjects (Painting and Sculpture) were held in the same lot. The previous lot of The Choristers is known to have consisted of two roundels and The Garland lot 144 and 145 (three paintings each) only reached 110 and 70 guineas which increases the possibility that lot 143 consisted of two paintings. It should be noted that Mrs W. de Houghton Birch (J.P Seddon's daughter) exhibited the panels from the cabinet in the exhibition "Pre-Raphaelite Paintings from Lancashire Collections" at the National Gallery Millbank in 1913. The model for King René was a Italian named Ciamelli, an organ grinder who was used by Simeon Solomon and Burne-Jones as a model in the early 1860s and was admired for his magnificent head of black hair.
This watercolour is a design for the panel Burne-Jones painted to decorate a cabinet constructed by the architect John Pollard Seddon (1827-1906) in 1861. Made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company, the cabinet is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (fig. 2). Seddon designed the cabinet for his own use and had it made by his father’s cabinet-making firm before commissioning ten painted panels depicting the fine and applied Arts from Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. to decorate it (see lot 25 for a painting by Seddon's brother Thomas). The scheme of decoration was conceived by Ford Madox Brown, who suggested panels based on incidents from the honeymoon of King René of Anjou, as told in Sir Walter Scott’s novel Anna von Geierstein, reflecting the character’s interest in the arts. King René became a hero figure for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood for his enthusiasm for all the arts, particularly the applied. For the four central panels, Brown depicted Architecture, showing the king considering his plans for his castle: his watercolour design is now at the Tate, London, and an oil version at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (fig. 1). Rossetti designed a panel evoking Music, in which René leans across a piano played by his new wife to kiss her, while Burne-Jones captured Painting and Sculpture. Most of the smaller panels were designed by Val Prinsep. By the end of the 1850s, Burne-Jones and his contemporaries had moved away from studying the work of the early German engravers, such as Dürer, and had begun to explore the work of the Italian Renaissance painters, in particular the work of Venetian artists such as Titian. They spent time studying the work of Italian painters in British collections, at the National Gallery and at Hampton Court, such as the Portrait of Isabelle d’Este, then attributed to Parmigianino, but now ascribed to Giulio Romano. The deep, richly glowing colours, ornate patterns and sumptuous interiors suited the more sensual style that Burne-Jones, Rossetti and others were adopting at this time. In the summer of 1859, Burne-Jones undertook his first visit to Italy, spending time in Florence, Pisa, Siena and Venice, and this first-hand experience consolidated his developing interest. The rich fabric of the clothing in the present watercolour reflects his interest in the Italian Renaissance, although the style of the clothing is more medieval. The dresses worn here were designed by William Morris for his wife Jane, and re-used by Burne-Jones for his models to wear in other early works including Clerk Saunders (1861, Tate, London), La Belle Iseult and the Tristram series. Although this work was originally intended as a study for the panel, it is rendered in Burne-Jones’s highly experimental technique with extensive use of bodycolour and gum arabic, combined with watercolour, giving the appearance of an oil. This was a technique which Burne-Jones would continue to employ throughout his life. A pencil study of the subject, now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, demonstrates Burne-Jones’s meticulous preparation for this type of decorative commission. A set of four stained glass windows of the same subjects based on these designs were made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1862 for the library window of the artist Myles Birket Foster’s (1825-1899) house in Witley, Surrey.
E B-J didn't know Graham in 1861 so the entry in the Fitzwilliam worklist " King Rene's Honeymoon - Graham" has to be retrospective. Fiona MacCarthy cites their first meeting as 1865 when Graham bought Chant D'Amour first version, as does Fitzgerald. Also confirmed by Georgiana in Memorials
King René’s Honeymoon: Painting, executed in 1861 when the artist was only twenty-eight, is an important work, illustrating the symbiotic relationship between Burne-Jones’s developing technique in watercolour and his early decorative work in the sphere of the applied arts. The early 1860s were a highly fertile and determining period in Burne-Jones’s oeuvre and the present watercolour beautifully illustrates both his innate sense of design combined with his exploration of colour and the adoption of watercolour and bodycolour as a medium to express a more painterly style. King René’s Honeymoon Cabinet The present watercolour is the design for the painted panel Burne-Jones contributed to the cabinet designed by architect John Pollard Seddon (1827-1906) for his own use and made by his father’s cabinet making firm in 1861 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, fig. 1). It was intended for use as an architect’s desk for writing or drawing and to house his professional drawings in his office chambers at No. 6, Whitehall, London. The cabinet consists of a flat top, with central sloping desk, and a shelf running the full width of the top, above four cupboards, which sit on a plinth. The larger pair of cupboards in the centre project slightly forward and are flanked by narrower cupboards. All four cupboard doors have painted panels set in chamfered and gilded frames and six smaller painted panels with the same frames are set into the front and ends of the shelf running along the top of the cabinet. Seddon designed the metal work and inlay and commissioned the newly founded firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkener and Co. to decorate it with ten painted panels depicting imagined incidents in the honeymoon of King René of Anjou. Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893) suggested the overall theme based on fictional events from the honeymoon of King René of Anjou2, the story narrated in one of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels Anna von Geierstein or The Maiden of the Mist, 1829. King René was an important figure for the Pre-Raphaelites due to his enthusiasm for the arts, particularly the applied arts. Brown also designed the panel representing ‘Architecture’ (watercolour version 1864, Tate, London; oil painting 1864, National Museum of Wales) (fig. 2). Burne-Jones painted two of the panels: ‘Painting’ and ‘Sculpture’ (fig. 3), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) executed ‘Music’ and ‘Gardening’. The other smaller panels were by Val Prinsep (1838-1904) and ‘Pottery’, ‘Weaving’, ‘Ironwork’ 3 and ‘Glass Blowing’ are unattributed4. William Morris (1834-1896) designed the decorative background on each panel. The architect’s cabinet was displayed at the International Exhibition in 1862 and in the same year Morris, Marshall and Co also produced a set of four stained glass panels based on the designs of ‘Music’, ‘Architecture’, ‘Sculpture’ and ‘Painting’ (fig. 4) for the library window at The Hill, Whitley, Surrey the home of Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899). Although this work was originally intended as a study for the panel, it is rendered in the experimental technique Burne-Jones used at this date, which involved the extensive use of bodycolour and gum arabic, combined with watercolour to give the appearance of oil painting. A pencil study of the subject, formerly in the possession of Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919) and now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, demonstrates Burne-Jones’s meticulous preparation for this type of decorative commission. King René was the titular King of Naples, Sicily, Cyprus and Jerusalem, the father of Margaret, Queen of Henry VI of England. He was a man of wide and artistic cultivation, an amateur poet, architect, painter, sculptor, and musician. He was unsuccessful in his political career, being driven out of Sicily and Naples by Alfonsi of Aragon in 1442, and deprived of Anjou by Louis XI of France in 1473; he then retired to Aix, where he died in 1480, still loved by his people, who called him ‘Le Bon Roi René’. The over-arching theme of the episodes chosen for illustration was the King’s plan, after his marriage, to build a palace for himself and the Queen, which he would carve and decorate himself; and then when complete, for them to rejoice and make music in it. Consequently, the figure of the king, attended by his queen, appears in each of the large panels. The figure of the King was modelled from an Italian named Ciamelli, an organ grinder who was used by Simeon Solomon (1840-1905) as a model in the early 1860s and who was noted for his striking head of black hair. The mediaeval-style clothes depicted were designed by William Morris for his wife Jane and re-used by Burne-Jones in other works of this date such as Clerk Saunders, 1861 (Tate, London), La Belle Iseult, 1862 (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery) and the Tristram series of stained-glass designs. The artistic context for King René’s Honeymoon Burne-Jones’s early life in Birmingham was far from privileged, his father was a picture-framer and his mother died shortly after his birth. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School, Birmingham and went up to Exeter College, Oxford in 1853 to read theology. It was there that met his lifelong friend and collaborator William Morris (1834-1896). Burne-Jones and Morris were slightly younger than the original members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and they were greatly inspired and influenced by their works and philosophy. During the long summer holiday of 1855 Morris and Burne-Jones toured the cathedrals of Northern France together, their itinerary based on Ruskin’s writings, and it was during this summer that they underwent an epiphany with regard to their future careers. Both men had arrived in Oxford full of idealism and with the fervent intention of being ordained, yet they experienced a spiritual crisis and rather than a life in the service of the church, they decided instead to devote themselves to the pursuit of art, which provided an outlet for their shared love of medievalism and the romances of Chaucer and Malory. January of 1856 proved to be a watershed for the two undergraduates: Morris apprenticed himself to the architect George Street (1824-1881) and Burne-Jones had his first meeting with John Ruskin (1819-1900) and was invited by Rossetti to visit him in his rooms overlooking the Thames at Chatham place. By May of the same year Burne-Jones had abandoned his degree and had settled in London to begin his career as an artist. He received informal lessons ‘some thirty times’ from Rossetti, sharing rooms with Morris at 17 Red Lion Square from November 1856 to September 1858. Perhaps the pinnacle of the medieval stage for the coterie of artists around Rossetti was the painting of the celebrated murals in the Oxford Union from August 1857 to February the following year. Burne-Jones along with Rossetti, Morris, Val Prinsep (1838-1904), Arthur Hughes (1832-1915), John Hungerford Pollen (1820-1902), John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908) and the sculptor Alexander Munro (1825-1871) collaborated on this ‘jovial campaign’. This consciously chivalric style can also be seen in Rossetti’s ‘Froissartian’ watercolours of the late 1850s, Jones’s contemporary pen and ink drawings and the publication of Morris’s first volume of poetry, The Defence of Guenevere, in March 1858. Burne-Jones’s work during the first few years of his career consisted of a series of small, highly finished intense pen and ink drawings (fig. 5). His poor health at this period possibly led him to work on a small scale, but his choice of medium was influenced by Rossetti, who used it himself extensively in the 1850s, and by the writings of Ruskin in his Elements of Drawing, 1857, who urged his readers to study Dürer’s engravings, something the young artist took to heart. Ruskin played an influential role in the stylistic development of the young Burne-Jones. The art- critic was faltering with the fruitless task of ‘managing’ the members of the original Brotherhood and alarmed at what he saw as the medievalising excesses of Rossetti and his followers, was drawn to the enticing prospect of moulding the young and talented Burne-Jones. Ruskin wrote in October 1858 to George Frederic Watts (1814-1904), regarding the influence Rossetti was exerting on Watts’ pupil Val Prinsep, ‘I was very glad to have your letter… for I am answerable for a good deal of this fatal medievalism in the beginning of it – not indeed for the principle of retrogression – but for the stiffness and quaintness and intensity as opposed to classical grace and tranquillity’, he continued that he was ‘sickened of all Gothic by Rossetti’s clique, all the more that I’ve been having a go with Paul Veronese’5. Burne-Jones had spent the summer of 1858 at Little Holland House in the company of Watts, recuperating from a bout of ill health. Therefore, it seems likely that Ruskin, perhaps assisted by Watts, encouraged Burne-Jones to visit Italy in May 1859 in the company of Prinsep. This trip proved hugely instrumental and the Italian influences he absorbed can be seen in his subsequent works and in his move into watercolour and bodycolour. The young artists toured Northern Italy visiting Genoa, Pisa, Florence and Venice. A sketch book from this trip in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge contains drawings after Botticelli, Giotto, Masaccio, Mantegna, Ghirlandaio and Carpaccio amongst others. In the first two years of the 1860s, before Burne-Jones’s second trip to Italy in the 1862, we can see the development of his technical mastery and the beginning of a stylistic change in his work – a move away from the claustrophobic, gothic medievalism of Rossetti and an absorption of Venetian and Renaissance styles which were gradually succeeding medievalism in Rossetti’s circle. These developments can be seen in Burne-Jones’s use of colour, his disposition of figures and the more sensuous subject matter, which he combined with his own innate sense of decorative design. The small group of watercolours dating from the early 1860s in many ways resemble oil paintings, his technique of using watercolour and bodycolour together achieved a richness of colour and depth of texture and are characterised by a warm, sombre palette. Evidence of his developing mastery can be seen in two of his most important early watercolours, completed in August 1860, Sidonia von Bork, 1560 and Clara von Bork, 1560 (both Tate Gallery) (figs. 6 and 7). which were sold to the great Pre-Raphaelite collector James Leathart (1820-1895) and clearly show the influence of more sensuous ‘Venetian’ sources. The palette and rich fabrics depicted in the present watercolour reflect these new influences, though the style of clothing, in keeping with its subject matter, is more mediaeval. In 1860 Ruskin complained that Burne-Jones was ‘always doing things which need one to get into a state of Dantesque Visionariness before one can see them… it tires me so’6 and in the summer of 1862, believing that Burne-Jones had not moved far enough away from these mediaeval tendencies, he took Burne-Jones and his new wife Georgiana to Italy to copy Venetian paintings, a trip which ushered in a further move towards the emerging trend of aestheticism. Burne-Jones’s transition from intense pen and ink drawings to colour and painting came largely through his collaboration on items of decorated medieval-style furniture and the present work is a key link between Burne-Jones’s developing technique and his early innovative decorative work, which produced some of the most inventive and original works of this period. Burne-Jones’s early fascination with the medieval world, which he shared with Rossetti and Morris, was furthered by a group of young gothic revival architects, including Seddon and Philip Webb (1831-1915), who were recreating medieval decorative techniques and a collaborative system of working. This modus operandi was in evidence at the Red House, designed by Webb, into which Morris and his new wife Jane moved in June 1860 and for which Burne-Jones painted three murals illustrating the romance of Sir Degrevaunt (fig. 8), and perhaps found its purest expression in the work of the firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkener and Co. which Burne-Jones joined as a founder member in April 1861. Early decorative works Burne-Jones worked on several precursors to Seddon’s cabinet: The Prioress’s Tale Wardrobe, 1859 designed by Philip Webb and given as a wedding present to the Morrises and installed in Jane’s bedroom at the Red House (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) (fig. 9) and The Backgammon Players Cabinet, 1861 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) (fig. 10). Family pieces included a wooden sideboard, painted in June 1860 in the week before Burne-Jones’s marriage to Georgiana MacDonald and decorated with scenes of medieval ladies feeding parrots, pigs and fish (Victoria and Albert Museum), the subject for the panels being described by Lady Burne-Jones as ‘Ladies and Animals …in various relations to each other’ and the lower panel of the piano, given to them as a wedding present, was painted in 1860 with a frieze Ladies and Death showing Death knocking at the door of a garden in which courtly maidens imbibe sweet music (Victoria and Albert Museum). Perhaps the apex of decorative furniture was the elaborate and highly decorated Great Bookcase, 1859-62 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), created for the architect William Burgess (1827-1881) to hold art books in his London office. It was completed by 1862, when it was also included in the International Exhibition in London. Fourteen leading artists worked on the Great Bookcase including Burne-Jones, John Anster Fitzgerald, Henry Holiday, Stacy Marks, Albert Moore, Thomas Morton, Edward Poynter, Rossetti, Charles Rossiter, Frederick Smallfield, Simeon Solomon, William Frederick Yeames, Frederick Weeks, Nathaniel Westlake and Burges himself. It is also worth noting that Burne-Jones’s most important early decorative commission, the Altarpiece for St. Paul’s Church, Brighton, 1860-61 (Tate Gallery) (fig. 11), a commission from the progressive architect G.F. Bodley (1827-1907) was certainly underway by the summer of 1860. It is no coincidence that the colour harmonies of reddish browns and blacks set against greens and blues, which is characteristic of these works from the early 1860s, reflect the colours of the domestic and church interiors Burne-Jones was working on with stained-glass commissions for Powells and after April 1861 for Morris and Co. King René’s Honeymoon Cabinet was exhibited at the International Exhibition in 1862 and entered the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1927. Seddon writing of the cabinet and its decoration in 1897 declared, ‘The whole are remarkable not only as the works of artists of genius, but as specimens of true decorative art, so seldom understood and realised in these days. The rich harmonious colour of the wood and metal-work make a rich setting to the paintings and produce a splendid general effect, so that no small interest is attached to this unique cabinet both from an historical and artistic point of view.’7 ‘The Firm’ William Morris had thought about forming a company to produce high-quality artist-designed objects since his time as a student at Oxford and he was heavily influenced by the writings of art critic John Ruskin. Morris’s ideas were made reality partly as a consequence of his discovery that he was unable to buy furnishings of the kind he wanted for his new marital home the Red House, Bexley Heath, which was designed and built by Morris’s architect friend Philip Webb. In his biography of Morris, Mackail writes, ‘The notion of building a house after his own fancy was one which had already been in Morris’s mind for a considerable time. He wanted it not merely as a place to live in, but as a fixed centre and background for his artistic work. He hated designing in the air, without relation to a definite material and a particular purpose. While his whole work as a decorative manufacturer may be not untruly said to have sprung directly out of the building and furnishing of this house, it would almost be equally true to say that the house, first in idea and then in fact, sprung out of his devoting himself to the practice of decorative art and requiring, as one might say, a canvas to work on.’8 The Firm was formally established in April 1861 with seven partners. Besides Morris himself, the partners consisted of his closest friend, Edward Burne-Jones, the Firm’s chief designer of tapestry and stained glass whose ability to draw figures complemented Morris’s talent for repeat patterns and decorative detail. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who being slightly older than both Morris and Burne Jones was well-placed in the artistic and bohemian circles which were essential to the successful launch of the new Firm. Ford Madox Brown, not a formal member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but who was closely associated with them and also slightly older, was something of a senior figure within the group. Philip Webb, architect and colleague of Morris during his brief spell at George Street’s architect practice. Charles Faulkner (1833-1892) was a friend of Morris and Burne-Jones from their time at Oxford. He was a mathematics don and trained as an engineer. Initially Faulkner kept the accounts, but he was also an amateur painter and contributed to tile painting for the Firm. The final original member of the Firm was Peter Paul Marshall (1830-1900), a surveyor and sanitary engineer by profession, but also a friend and pupil of Madox Brown and a talented amateur painter. The firm’s designs drew attention at the International Exhibition in London in 1862, in which Seddon’s cabinet was exhibited, and as a result the firm quickly expanded and in June 1865 moved from Red Lion Square to larger premises at 26 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London. Provenance The importance of this watercolour is highlighted by its place in the collection of one of the Pre- Raphaelite’s most important patrons, William Graham (fig. 12). The precise circumstances of when it entered Graham’s collection may have been conflated with that of the corresponding stained-glass window which he also possessed. In a letter to Burne-Jones of 3 March 1871 William Graham mentions ‘René's Honeymoon’ which indicates that he was in possession of the work at that date, however Garnett also records that Agnew’s bought the painting for Graham in the Birket Foster sale of 1876.9 William Graham (1817-1885) was a wealthy Glasgow merchant and Liberal member of parliament for Glasgow. The Graham family were typical of the rich mercantile classes of the Victorian era who fuelled the market for contemporary British Art and who became an important source of patronage to many artists. The family firm, W. & J. Graham & Co., specialised in cotton-spinning and importing dry goods from India and the Continent, with its head office in Glasgow and branches in Bombay and Lisbon. Graham lived in London and at Langley Hall, near Manchester, and also had houses in Scotland at Urrard and at Stobhall. William Graham may have been encouraged to begin collecting in the 1860s, by his uncle, John Graham (1797-1886) of Skelmorlie, whose fine collection included J. E. Millais's Sir Isumbras at the Ford, 1857 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), Holman Hunt's Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, 1862-63, 1864, 1865 (National Museums Liverpool, Sudley House), Burne-Jones’s Fides and Spes and three works by Rossetti. Graham was also a devout Presbyterian with a strict evangelical faith whose religious convictions did not preclude a passionate love of beauty. His belief that art should reflect the divine had a profound bearing on his taste. ‘Graham's approach to art was essentially emotional rather than intellectual’ and he once astonished Burne-Jones by kissing one of his pictures because ‘it had a part of it painted so much to his mind’. Graham's two passions as a collector were the Pre- Raphaelite school and the Italian Masters, particularly Italian primitives and sixteenth-century Venetian art, an enthusiasm that William Gladstone (1809-1898) acknowledged when he made him a trustee of the National Gallery in 1884. Although the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had been dissolved for many years by the time William Graham met Rossetti, once he had been introduced to Rossetti's early work, he sought out contemporary examples by the other members of the Brotherhood. Graham’s taste was very much for early Pre-Raphaelites paintings, such as the present work, which pre-dated his period of collecting. Graham died of stomach cancer on 16 July 1885, while staying with his daughter Agnes Jekyll (1861-1937) at Oakdene near Guildford in Surrey and was buried in the necropolis of St Mungo's Cathedral, Glasgow, together with several small paintings by Burne-Jones. Graham's enormous collection was dispersed at a five-day sale at Christie's in April 1886 realizing £69,168. It included some of the most important Pre-Raphaelite and Italian Old Master paintings now in museums in England and America. Burne-Jones accounted for no fewer than thirty-three lots, including some of Burne-Jones’s most celebrated works The Days of Creation, 1870-73 (Fogg Museum of Art, Cambridge, Mass.), Le Chant d ‘Amour, 1868- 77 (Metropolitan Museum, New York) and Laus Veneris, 1873-75 (Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle), but this did not represent Graham's entire holding of his work since many items were retained by the family. The picture was bought at Graham’s sale, lot 143, by Edward Clifford (1844-1907). Clifford (fig. 13) was an artist influenced by the aesthetic movement and best known for his portraits, he was a great admirer of Burne-Jones's work and painted, often at Burne-Jones’s request, several faithful copies of some of his early pictures from the 1860s, including The Forge of Cupid in 1890, see Christie’s, London, 11 July 2018, lot 44 and Merlin and Nimué, 1861 see Sotheby’s, London, 13 July 2017, lot 16. It is interesting to note that the present work was another watercolour from the 1860s purchased twenty-five years after its execution and for the substantial sum of 200 guineas. This was a large sum for a single small watercolour and it is possible that the lot included both King René subjects (Painting and Sculpture). The previous lot in the Graham sale, The Choristers, is known to have consisted of two roundels and The Garland lots 144 and 145 (three paintings each) only reached 110 and 70 guineas which increases the possibility that lot 143 consisted of two paintings. The watercolour then entered the collection of The Marchioness of Lothian, Lady Constance Harriet Mahonese Talbot (fig. 14), certainly by 1890. Lady Constance was born on the 15 June 1836 and married her first cousin Henry Chetwynd-Talbot, 8th Marquess of Lothian on 12 August 1857. The Marquess and his wife were both discerning picture collectors and added many important works to the collection, both Old Masters and works by contemporary artists. Early in 1857, before his marriage, the Marquess purchased Head of Christ by Andrea Solario and A Noble from the Georgi Family attributed to Ghirlandaio and in August 1857 bought four Italian pictures at the posthumous sale of Constance’s cousin, the 17th Earl of Shrewsbury. In tandem with the purchase of Old Master pictures they commissioned paintings from contemporary artists including a Portrait of Robert Kerss (a gamekeeper and friend of the family at Monteviot) by James Archer (1823-1904), exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1858 and Portrait of the Revd. Lord Henry Frances Charles Kerr, the Marquess’s Uncle, by George Richmond, R.A (1809- 1896). The collecting taste of the Marquess and Marchioness of Lothian was influenced by the artistic friends and acquaintances they met whilst the Marquess was up at Oxford. These included the architect John Hungerford Pollen, who was involved in painting the murals at the Oxford Union along with Rossetti, Morris and Burne-Jones, and who was an important figure in the mid-century revival in medievalism. While at Oxford Lothian also admired the work of John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and George Frederic Watts, who may have been introduced to them by the Marchioness’s aunt, Louisa Marchioness of Waterford (1818-1891). She was one of the most celebrated amateur artists of that time, who visited Holland House and associated with the coterie of artists who frequented it including Stanhope, Watts and Val Prinsep10. All of these artists were commissioned by the Lothians and their work and contributions to the decorative schemes can be found at Newbattle and Blickling Hall. The Lothians travelled abroad in 1860-1861 visiting Florence in January and February 1861, Rome in March of that year followed by Ravenna and Bologna in April and Venice and Padua in May, however, their trip was curtailed in Verona by the Marquess’s ill health11. Whilst in Italy they made several substantial purchases of Italian Old Masters from the marchand amateur William Blundell Spence (1814-1900), presumably introduced to them through their associates in the Holland House set, they included paintings by van Dyck, Piero di Cosima and Filippino Lippi. The 8th Marquess never recovered from this decline in health – he was thought to have contracted some kind of wasting disease akin to multiple sclerosis whilst out in India and was left wheelchair bound. One of Watts’ most important paintings Love and Death was said to have been inspired by his tragic condition observed while Watts was painting his portrait at Blickling Hall in 1862, he also painted portraits of Lady Lothian and her two sisters (fig. 14). There were a few contemporary acquisitions to the collection in the latter part of the 1860s before the Marquess’s death, including Val Prinsep’s Lisa, 1867 and Sir John Leslie’s (1822-1916) Portrait of Lady Lothian, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1866. Perhaps his most significant later acquisition was The Virgin and Child with St John and Angels by Albrecht Durer, 1506. The 8th Marquis was one of the earliest collectors of Quattrocento and Cinquecento art and his appreciation of this period was at the head of this emerging change in taste, particularly in Scotland. His appreciation of the paintings of his contemporaries seems very much shared by his wife and this early work by Burne-Jones remained in her collection until at least 1904, three years after her death on 10 October 1901. There is then somewhat of a lacuna in the history of the picture until it was sold at Christie’s in 1971 to the Fine Art Society for the substantial price of 2800 guineas. Shortly afterwards it entered the notable collection of Joseph Setton, where it remained, largely unseen for fifty years until its appearance on the art market at Christie’s in December 2020. Joe Setton (d. 1984) began collecting works by the Pre-Raphaelites and the two generations of artists whom they inspired in 1968. His collecting brief was informed by Percy Bate’s seminal 1899 book The English Pre-Raphaelite Painters: Their Associates and Successors. His stated objective to buy any picture illustrated in the publication, a quest he was aided in by the London art dealer Julian Hartnoll. The collection was formed at a time when the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers were subject to the vagaries of taste; the Victorian revival being still in its infancy and Setton was able to amass a wonderful collection of works, but also to create and lead a new market for later Pre-Raphaelites. His collection included works by second and third generation of Pre-Raphaelites replete with the imagery of romance and unrequited love including Marie Stillman’s (1844-1927) masterpiece, The Enchanted Garden; John Byam Shaw’s (1872-1919) The Queen of Hearts and The Queen of Spades; Evelyn De Morgan’s (1855-1919) Gloria in Excelsis and her gold on sanguine paper drawing The light shineth into darkness; and George Frederic Watts’ sumptuous nude A Study with the Peacock’s Feathers alongside works by Simeon Solomon, John William Godward (1861-1922) and Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896). Conclusion King René’s Honeymoon; Painting sits firmly in the small group of darkly poetic watercolours, dating from the early 1860s executed after Burne-Jones’s enlightening first trip to Italy in 1859. Its importance is evident as a link between his dual role as both artist and craftsman. The present watercolour was executed at a defining moment for the nascent arts and crafts movement and encapsulates the ideals and fervour of Morris’s groundbreaking firm as stated in the prospectus for Morris, Marshall, Faulkener and Co., 1861, ‘The growth of decorative art in this country … has now reached a point at which it seems desirable that artists of reputation should devote their time to it.’ This jewel like watercolour provides us with a window through which to view Burne- Jones’s creative spirit and the zeal of the decorative arts movement which fostered it. 1 Burne-Jones catalogue raisonné, quotes the reference under 1861 as ‘King René’s Honeymoon-Graham’, which must be a retrospective note as in 1861 Burne-Jones was not yet acquainted with Graham. 2 Perhaps with the recent marriages of other members of Morris and Co. in mind. 3 Which depicts William Morris as a smith. 4 V & A states these panel unaOributed, but J.P. Seddon’s arEcle ‘John P Seddon Cabinet’, Magazine of Art, XX, April 1897, pp. 323-324 stated the other panels are by Burne-Jones. 5 Quoted in J. Christian, ‘A Serious Talk’: Ruskin’s Place in Burne-Jones’s Artistic Development’, Pre-Raphaelite Papers, Tate Gallery, 1984, p. 190. 6 E.T. Cook and A.D.O. Wedderburn, The Works of John Ruskin Library Edi@on, 1903-1912, XXXVI, p. 347. 7 ‘John P Seddon Cabinet’, Magazine of Art, XX, April 1897, pp. 323-324. 8 J.W. Mackail, The Life of William Morris, London, 1911, vol. I, pp. 139-140. 9 This statement of Graham’s conflicts with Garner’s assertion that he bought the painting from the Birket Foster sale in 1876, see O. Garner, ‘The Letters and Collection of William Graham-Pre-Raphaelite patron and Pre-Raphael Collector’, Walpole Society, 62, 2000, pp. 255, 289. 10 Another one of the artists involved in the Oxford Union murals. 11 Burne-Jones travelled to Italy in 1859 and 1862 and it is possible that he was introduced to the Lothians by another mutual acquaintance, Ruskin, who accompanied the Burne-Joneses on their second trip.