'Comes He Not[?]' (A girl watching for her lover from the top of a tower), from an album of 42 drawings, entitled 'The Flower Book', 1882-98; a young woman cloaked in drapery, looking down from a crenellated tower, within border, circular Watercolour and bodycolour, heightened with gold
'The Flower Book', 1882-98, containing fanciful or symbolic designs, each suggested by an old English vernacular name of a flower. The artist's own subtitles given in brackets although not inscribed on the drawings. Twelve designs removed and mounted separately after the book was purchased. The artist's initials and '1882' are inscribed on a cloth cover. Some pages have only the outline of a circle, many are blank. Towards the back of the album are three pages with red rectangles prepared and finally an index of flower names and ideas for designs. Facsimile BL LR 27 a 9. See Exhibition Catalogue: 'The Arts Council of Great Britain', 1975, p.89, 318. See also J A Gere, 'Pre-Raphaelite Drawings in the British Museum', 1994, pp.146-148. There are two letters in the 'Letters Received 1909-1911' file - one written by Georgiana Burne-Jones and the other signed 'Phil Burne-Jones' (Sir Philip Burne-Jones, the artist's eldest son) - relating to the acquisition of the Flower Book. The set of drawings begun in 1882 was Burne-Jones's rejection of the academic accuracy required by Watts and Ruskin, and it was a return to the impromptu technique that he had practiced as an untrained artist in which his natural skill as a draughtsman enabled him to capture his imaginary world. He re-visited the stories he had explored with greater sophistication during his career, but with a spontaneity which enabled him to enjoy the textures and simple expression of the subjects, without the arduous processes of academic observation. Their intimate scale reveals a highly personal art in counterpoint to the more public work, , these images are the closest he came to expressing an psychological and visual autobiography. Because these drawings were never for public display Burne Jones was able to forgo contemporary conventions to express himself directly. Throughout his life Burne-Jones had consulted languages of flowers which had begun with Henry Phillips "Floral Emblems" of 1825, to create secret message within his pairings. In the Flower Book he has continued the idea but rejected an accepted language to substitute meanings of his own. In selecting the names of the flowers he went back to medieval sources as well as those supplied by some of his friends. Typically he was rejecting current scientific discoveries, preferring the medieval folkloric view of nature as manifestation of divine presence.
In 1882, Georgiana later recorded, "Edward began the most soothing piece of work that he ever did. He describes it in his List as a series of illustrations to the names of flowers/ and that is the point of it — the names: not a single flower itself appears. The pictures are circular water-colours six inches in diameter, and the first one is 'Love in a Mist,' representing Love as a youth caught by a swirling cloud with which he struggles helplessly. During sixteen years thirty-eight designs were made at irregular intervals." 1 The format is an extension of the later Orpheus roundels (cat. no. 128), and that Burne- Jones took some trouble over this seemingly informal work is clear from the survival of a number of trial designs. 2 The finished watercolors were published in facsimile in 1905 as The Flower Book, the Fine Art Society employing Henri Piazza to produce such a superb piece of color printing that examples are still commonly identified as original works. In the Introduction, Georgie recalls Burne-Jones "keeping a list of beautiful names that he had met with & choosing subjects amongst them from time to time according to his mood," each in the form of "a kind of magic mirror in which the vision appears." 3 Early on, he enlisted the help of Eleanor Leigh ton (Lady Leighton Warren) in providing ideas: "Pray send me as many names as ever you can," he wrote, "for alack it is not one in ten that I can use. Of course I could make pictures to all, but I want the name and the picture to be one soul together, and indissoluble, as if they could not exist apart; so many lovely names and nothing to be done with them ... it is not enough to illustrate them — that is such poor work: I want to add to them or wring their secret from them. They are such rest to do and such delight." 4 A good number of the watercolors were done during relax- ing days at North End House, Rottingdean, "bearing witness," in Georgie's words, "to the way in which the surrounding land- scape sank into his soul." 5 Landscape elements abound, even including fields and hillsides within this tiny compass; he was particularly fond of the cornfield motif (which allowed plenti- ful use of gold paint), as in Flower of God (vi) and Saturn s Loathing (xxx), which led to an independent treatment of Sun Ripening Corn in watercolor (Tate Gallery, London). Many of the images reflect favorite themes and compositions: Golden Cup (vii) and Honors Prize (xxxii) include the Holy Grail; Witches Tree (xv) is another treatment of The Beguiling of Merlin (cat. no. 64); Golden Shower (xviii) reveals Danae inside her brazen tower; and Meadow Sweet (xxxv) combines the ship from The Sirens (cat. no. 157) with the central figures of 'Arthur inAvalon (fig. 107). There is much new invention, however, the Botticellian Rose of Heaven (v) floating serenely with her atten- dant doves, and Helens Tears (xxv) extending the imagery of the story of Troy, the ghostly Arbor Tristis (xxviii), the only flower picture without figures, which shows the Crucifixion tree surrounded by a dark city wall pierced by points of harsh orange light, reveals the artist's melancholy imagination. 1. Memorials, vol. 2, p. 118. 2. First attempts at Key of Spring (xi) and Welcome to the House (xxxi) were sold at Sotheby's, November 22, 1988, lot 68. 3. Introduction, in Flower Book 1905, unpaginated. 4. Memorials, vol. 2, p. 119. 5. Ibid., p. 124.