Martin Harrison and Bill Waters point out that the artist had done two earlier versions of the subject — a watercolor "in 1861 that relates to Swinburne's poem of the same title" [Agnes Graham - Gertrude Jeckyll, Munstead Wood] and "a sequence of illustrations" for William Morris's "The Hill of Venus" in The Earthly Paradise. Morris told the story of the cursed knight with "quiet lyricism without undue sensuality; Swinburne is the most carnal", although Laus Veneris, like so many of of Burne-Jones's major works, began as an illustration for The Earthly Paradise, again like many of his works that began this way, Laus Veneris diverges from Morris, here portraying Swinburne's claustrophobic atmosphere. As Harrison and Waters correctly note, There is an air of malaise within the painting. In the densely packed space the queen is portrayed in her claustrophobic chamber being entertained with music by her attendants. Outside, seen through a rectangular window, some knights ride by, and already they seem captives to the women within. Lest there should be any doubt in the viewer's mind, the artist has painted scenes on the walls of the chamber which reflect the central story, on the right the passing of Venus and in the upper-left corner a siren luring her victim. The colour is like that of a sumptuous illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. Reds, orange, purple and blue predominate and impart a sense of resplendent luxury — but with one exception, the rectangle containing the knights is modelled in cold blues — seemingly symbolic of their hopeless situation. The painting represents a peak in Bume-Jones's use of colour, nothing before it was as dramatically rich. He used darker tones in the eighties, and silvery ones in the nineties. The major difference between this painting and Swiburne's poem — a difference that has much to tell us about how meanings in word and image can diverge — derives from the fact that the poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue; that is, the speaker, not the poet, describes the stiffling, hopeless atmosphere in the Venusberg. The painting conveys the painter's view of things, the poem a character's — a point made particularly clear when the speaker blames Venus for what his own words reveal to be his fault. Burne-Jones presents an image of stiffling, enslaving erotic love; Swinburne a portrait of a lust-obsessed man who blames his fall upon the desired love object, not himself.
Nestling amongst the carved foliage are small swans’ heads, which may possibly be symbols of music, of Apollo or of Venus. Again excepting The beguiling of Merlin, this imagery suits many of the paintings framed in this pattern. Two of them – Laus Veneris and The mirror of Venus – were photographed in their ‘swan’s head frames’ by Emery Walker, hanging either side of King Cophetua in the 1898-99 memorial exhibition. This is the only record of the original frame of Laus Veneris, which is now in a different setting – appropriate for it but seemingly untraceable to a particular source. The ‘swan’s head frame’ was also used for the series of paintings depicting the legend of Perseus, the existing oil paintings for which are now in the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart. The Frame Blog
Sotheby's photograph 1971: Unknown, Peter Nahum; Fred Wright; Paul Thompson; Sir Philip Hay; Martin Baile; Janet Green, Peter Wilson in the rostrum
In answer to a question by PN re the image from Le roman de la rose, influencing Laus Veneris, William Waters writes: This important manuscript [Le roman de la rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun Bodleian Library MS. Douce 195] and the version in the BM were at the heart of BJ's thinking in the early 1860s and they became the basis for many of his narratives and construction of his compositions. Some of the illuminations were used as the beginning of specific works, others were more general. The structure of the space in this particular example is indeed like that of Laus Veneris. As we have not got access to his early version it is very difficult to be precise. BJs knowledge of the Oxford manuscript led him to investigate that in the BM so that both became important sources. There are closer illuminations to the Heart of the Rose but the idea was probably germinated in the Oxford version.