It appears that the drawings mentioned in following letter, dated 28 April 1892, were the only works included in the Salon (Fondation Custodia, Lugt Collection, Paris, Puvis de Chavannes, P.: 9308 Bb-Bc). Puvis’s wish was granted nearly a century later, however, when The Wheel of Fortune was purchased by the state in 1980. Puvis made a concerted effort to include Burne-Jones in this alternative Salon, which proclaimed its modernity by giving space to the decorative arts and was known for showing artists working in a Symbolist vein;89 a series of letters tells the story of his attempt to solicit Burne-Jones’s The Wheel of Fortune (1883) for inclusion in the 1892 Salon. Although he ultimately had to make do with a selection of drawings in place of the hoped-for painting,90 and his wistfully expressed wish for ‘a meeting that I have long desired’ with Burne-Jones was destined to remain unfulfilled,91 Puvis was responsible for securing Burne-Jones’s participation in the Salons of 1893, 1895 and 1896. Moreover, the respect and admiration Puvis expressed seems to have been reciprocated. When, in 1891, Joséphin Péladan sent a pamphlet to Burne-Jones to solicit his participation in the first Salon de la Rose + Croix, the artist, no doubt taken aback by the Sâr’s purple prose and alarming vehemence, wrote to Watts expressing his misgivings, describing the pamphlet as ‘disgracefully silly, but I was in the mood . . . to help in anything that upholds the ideals I care for . . . do you know Puvis de Chavannes? Who has lifted the same banner’. Burne-Jones then evidently consulted Puvis, who himself refused to associate himself with the Rose + Croix, and on his advice declined to exhibit.92 90 A letter from Puvis to Burne-Jones, dated 8 February 1892, indicates that Burne-Jones sent a study for the figure of Fortune (‘Merci de tout mon coeur d’artiste pour l’envoi de votre puissant et original symbole de la Fortune. – comme tous ceux que j’ai conviés à le voir j’ai été profondément frappé de son aspect de grandeur.’), but the painting itself was never sent, for reasons that must remain obscure. It appears that the drawings mentioned in following letter, dated 28 April 1892, were the only works included in the Salon (Fondation Custodia, Lugt Collection, Paris, Puvis de Chavannes, P.: 9308 Bb-Bc). Puvis’s wish was granted nearly a century later, however, when The Wheel of Fortune was purchased by the state in 1980. 91 ‘De plus vous me faites espérer une rencontre que je désire depuis bien longtemps’. Fondation Custodia, Puvis de Chavannes, P.: 9308 Bd. In fact, Burne-Jones’s final visit to France, in 1878, was also the last time he left England before his death. 92 R. Upstone, ‘Echoes in Albion’s Sacred Wood: Puvis and British Art’, in Lemoine (2002), p. 279.