Edward Coley Burne-Jones was closely associated with the latter phase of the pre-Raphaelite movement inspired by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He met English designer and writer William Morris at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1852 and in 1861 became a founding member of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., which specialised in the design and production of stained glass, tapestries, fabric, wallpaper and carpets. Burne-Jones was enamoured of classical poetry, literature, mythology and Arthurian legend, which provided the sources for many of his designs and paintings. From the early 1870s, following his third visit to Italy, Burne-Jones was influenced by the paintings of the Italian Quattrocento - particularly those by Botticelli and Mantegna - which can be seen in works such as Aurora. Aurora, the Roman mythical personification of dawn, is here depicted barefoot and with cymbals to wake the sleeping city as a soft dawn light rises behind rooftops and distant trees. It is likely that Burne-Jones's interpretation of Aurora is based on a reading of Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem Tithonus, which relates the tragic story of Aurora's Greek iteration, Eos. Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn, took mortal lovers, one of whom was Tithonus, Prince of Troy. She asked that Zeus grant him immortality, which he did, but without the attendant gift of eternal youth. Tithonus aged and withered as Eos continued to herald the sun each day. In Tennyson's poem, Tithonus's immortality is granted by Aurora herself. Like other pre-Raphaelite artists, Edward Coley Burne-Jones used contemporary models for his mythical subjects and imbued them with classical attributes. The face of Aurora in this work is an idealised portrait of Bessie Keene, one of the artist's models. The background path appears to have been developed from a sketch of a canal near the railway bridge at Oxford. The buildings, however, are fanciful and consistent with the atmosphere of dreamlike unreality that pervades Burne-Jones's work.
A small pocket-book of this time contains a note made by Edward from a canal-bridge in a poor quarter of the city, which nearly thirty years afterwards he developed into the background of his “Aurora”. The main outlines of building and canal are preserved in the picture, and Aurora with her cymbals comes lightly stepping along a waterside path from which in the original sketch a woman stoops to bathe her baby, but the canal has changed into an arm of a river and the houses have been welded into the long, low storage-places of a wharf, crowned by a great church lifted up against the sky. He enjoyed making up stories to himself about his backgrounds, as he painted them; and one day as he was working on “Aurora” he did a very unusual thing, for the humour seized him to think aloud, and he spun out a whole history of the place, “You see the city gets poorer as it gets toward the church,” he said,”which makes it more interesting–the rich people have gone to live further off. It has had many epochs: first the Roman–you may see remains of that in the foundations: then was an oligarchic government, following on a time of anarchy and disaster, that put up many fine buildings, and some of them still remain. Then came an epoch of trade, capricious and varying in locality, that produced the strangest results on its architecture, one part of the town cutting out another by setting up nearer the sea further down the river, then being driven back again for reasons that can’t be found out now–traces of prosperity and decay succeeding each other.” (written by Georgiana Burne-Jones in Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, vol. I) Although the background was taken from a canal in Oxford, you can definitely see the influence from Burne-Jones’ trips to Italy as well. In mythology, Aurora personifies the dawn and is seen here using her cymbals to awaken the city to a new day. For comparison, you can see Evelyn De Morgan’s painting of Aurora’s Greek counterpart: Eos.
Aurora - the personification of dawn in Greco-Roman mythology - is clashing her cymbals to bring on the day and wake the sleeping city. Enveloped in soft light, Aurora is depicted as an ethereal female figure. Her face is an idealised portrait of Bessie Keene, one of the artist's models. The background path is based on a sketch of a canal near the railway bridge at Oxford. Although the buildings are fictitious, this reference to a contemporary setting allowed the painting to move beyond its classical associations and be interpreted as a metaphor for the dawn of a new era. The handmade frame of 'Aurora' was constructed in 1999 by the Gallery's framer, Robert Zilli, based on frame styles favoured by Burne-Jones. As a Pre-Raphaelite, the artist was interested in the reintegration of the frame into the visual experience of a painting. This idea was promoted by the use of frames designed by the artists themselves to complement particular pictures or interiors. Burne-Jones's source of inspiration for his frames was fifteenth century Italian art. The design of this frame is based on an Italian cassetta moulding, gilded with gold leaf and decorated with patterns related to existing Burne-Jones frames. Extract from: 'The Centenary exhibition: Highlights of French and British art from the collection'. QAG, Brisbane, 1999, exh. brochure, p.6. Reproductions 'Artlines: Bi-monthly magazine of the Queensland Art Gallery Society', July- Aug. 1999, col. ill. front cover. 'Living by design: Art handbook for teachers, years 4 and 5'. Dept. of Education, Qld, [Brisbane], 1993, ill. p.72. 'Queensland Art Gallery retrospect and prospect'. The Fine Arts Press, Sydney, 1983, p.507, col. ill. p.512. 'Selected works'. QAG, Brisbane, 1982, col. ill. p.25. 'Queensland Art Gallery Society newsletter', Aug. 1981, pp.1-2, ill. Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, fiche no. 930, box no. 384. 'Music in the Gallery'. QAG, Brisbane, undated, ill. Phythian, John Ernest. 'Burne-Jones'. G. Richards, 1908, opp. p.80. See also 'Exhibition history' and 'References'.