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By Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Summer Snow, possible oil version
1859 circa
Collection Categories
Oils, tempera on canvas/panel and Mixed Media
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The painting that is hung on the wall in Professor Higgin's study, in the film My Fair Lady (1964), appears to be the oil version of a painting later know as "Summer Snow". When a watercolour study was exhibited in Barbizon House in 1934, Gordon Bottomley wrote:
"Among the artist's earlier works was a small canvas of a girl in green standing among daffodils under a tree and reading. This design appeared afterward in "Good Words" for May, 1863, with the addition of petals falling from the tree' boughs, as a wood-engraving in reverse entitled "Summer Snow"."

At this date, c. 1857, Burne-Jones began working in oil but abandoned the medium as the fumes made him ill. "The Blessed Damozel" (Palazzo Butera, Palermo, Italy, 2007), remained unfinished for this reason. If the painting that appears on film is a genuine work, it is a previously unrecorded example of Burne-Jones working in oil at this early date, Bottomley's reference to "a small canvas" suggests that the medium was oil. However Bottomley does not give the source of this information. But the evidence cannot be verified until the work is located.

William Waters
14/04/2024
Title Author/Editor Year Page No. & Illustrations Attachments
Barbizon House 1934 An illustrated Record Gordon Bottomley 1934


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