The study for the Hours c. 1867 is signed and dedicated to Charles Augustus Howell, the owl. It must have been given early in their friendship, contemporary with the actual making of the drawing when they were still very close. Also when they were really intimate EB-J dedicated his presents with a small drawing of an owl.
This study of a young woman for a figure in The Hours, c. 1867, is signed with initials and dedicated as a gift from the artist to Charles Augustus Howell, known as ‘the Owl’. It must have been given early in their friendship, contemporary with the actual making of the drawing when they were still very close. Also when they were really intimate Burne-Jones dedicated his presents, such as this, with a small drawing of an owl. The Hours (Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield) begun in 1870 and completed in 1882, depicts the passing of time during the course of the day represented by six female figures. This study of a young woman is for the first figure on the left side in The Hours, thus representing morning. She is shown seated, with her right arm over her head and her left hand shading her eyes, as she emerges from her slumbers. In the painting Burne-Jones has slightly altered her pose. The young women, each absorbed in their own languid reverie, are shown with various attributes of daily observances – such as washing, labour, preparing food, playing music and finally by the end of the day on the far right, sleep. Burne-Jones has used colour and light to create harmony throughout The Hours. It is a complicated and detailed design that took him twelve years to complete, thus alterations were inevitable. He wrote: ‘I have been working very hard in spite of all things, and I hope to finish the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and the ‘Hours’. I think you never saw the last – not a big picture, about five feet long – a row of six little women that typify the hours of day from waking to sleep. Their little knees look so funny in a row that wit descended on me from above, and I called them the ‘laps of time’. Every little lady besides the proper colour of her own frock wears a lining of colour of the hour before her and a sleeve of the hour coming after – so that Mr. Whistler could, if he liked, call it a fugue.’ (G. Burne-Jones, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, vol. II.) Characteristic of Burne-Jones, The Hours reflects his unique ability to combine the traditions of Pre- Raphaelitism with the Italian Renaissance into a new aesthetic style. A painting from Florence, and attributed to the Studio of Botticelli of Five Sibyls seated in Niches, is clearly an inspiration for Burne-Jones’s composition.. Only a few studies of figures for The Hours have appeared on the art market. A study for the fourth figure from the left (signed with initials and dated 1864, red-brown chalk over traces of black chalk, 12 x 6 ¼ in.) was offered for sale at Christie’s, New York, 23 February 1983, lot 167). Ten years earlier, on 10 July 1973, at Sotheby’s, Belgravia, lot 33, a figure study for what is described as the first version of The Hours was offered for sale (signed with monogram and dated 1866, pencil and sanguine chalk, 10 ¾ x 6 ½ in.). The catalogue description reads: This study is for an early version of ‘The Hours’, started circa 1864. The finished painting or water-colour was either never completed or has been subsequently lost. Provenance: From the collection of George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, H.R.W.S. From the collection of Lady Sheffield, who received it as a gift from Lord Carlisle. The Property of The Hon. Mrs Anthony Henley. Charles Augustus Howell (1840-1890), known as ‘the Owl’, to whom this drawing given, was an artists’ agent and professional rogue. Born in Porto, Portugal, he was the youngest of the six children of Alfred William Howell, an English drawing master and wine merchant. His mother was from an eminent Portuguese family through whom Howell claimed to have inherited the distinguished red ribbon of the Order of Christ. A gifted raconteur and phenomenal liar, Howell is remembered for his numerous and nefarious dealings with the Victorian art world, notably Burne-Jones, John Ruskin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet Algernon Swinburne and James McNeill Whistler. After an adventurous youth, Howell settled in London in 1865 and lived with his aunt and his cousin, whom he married two years later. He became Ruskin’s secretary and confidant and perfected skilful facsimiles of works of art. A close friend and agent of Rossetti, it was Howell who persuaded him to retrieve the manuscripts of all his early poems he had placed in the coffin of his wife, Lizzie Siddal, following her death from an overdose of laudanum in 1869. No stranger to deception and double-dealing, Howell is characterised in Rossetti’s limerick: There’s a Portuguese person named Howell Who lays on his lies with a trowel; Should he give over lying, ‘Twill be when he’s dying, For living is lying with Howell. Burne-Jones was also a close friend, thus dedicating the present drawing to Howell, from the early years of their friendship. Notoriously unscrupulous, Howell managed Whistler’s affairs during the artist’s period of financial crisis. He lived at Chaldon House in London’s North End Road, where he established himself as an art expert and interior decorator. One of his clients was George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle. Frederick Sandys made a perceptive portrait of Howell in 1882 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). His final years were spent in Southampton Row and at Old Danner, a house on the Sussex coast at Selsey Bill, where he played the role of an illustrious grandee. He died in April 1890, at the age of 50. Curiously, his death was reported more than once, apparently at Howell’s own instigation in order that he might discover what was said of him. Thus his actual demise was met with considerable disbelief. He was buried in London’s Brompton cemetery. The Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonné Ltd has examined images and confirms the drawing is by the hand of Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones Bt, ARA.