Inscriptions and Marks inscription: back of frame, incised: (twice): M. GRIEVE CO. / HAND CARVED / NEW YORK & LONDON label: formerly cardboard back of frame (now in file), printed and inscribed: [cut-out from sale catalogue]: E. BURNE-JONES, A.R.A., 1870. / 43 NIGHT AND MORNING--a pair--in water colours / 47 1/2 in. by 17 1/2 in.; also inscribed in brown ink: Purchased for J. Ruston Esq. by Thomas / Agnew & Sons, at the sale of the Leyland / Collection 28th May, 1892 gallery label: formerly cardboard back of frame (now in file), printed and inscribed: SCOTT & FOWLES / 680 FIFTH AVENUE / NEW YORK / No. 5904 [in black ink] label: formerly cardboard back of frame (now in file), printed and inscribed: This Picture, being painted in WATER / COLOUR, would be injured by the slight- / est moisture. / Great care must be used whenever / it is removed from the Frame. / Inscribed on label in brown ink: Edward Burne-Jones inscription: on threshold of doorway, in artist's hand: I AM NIGHT & BRING AGAIN / HOPE OF PLEASURE REST FROM PAIN / THOUGHTS UNSAID TWIXT LIFE AND DEATH / MY FRUITFUL SILENCE QUICKENETH inscription: lower right of threshold, graphite, in artist's hand: HAS IMAGINES PINXIT E BURNE JONES / MDCCCLXX
Label Text: 32Q: 2130 19th Century , written 2015 Burne-Jones painted the large watercolors Day and Night, along with four panels depicting the seasons, for the shipping magnate and collector Frederick R. Leyland’s house in London. The youthful figure of Day, wreathed in morning mist and holding a torch, is poised at the threshold of a newly made day above an imaginary seaport. Night, in front of a star-spangled sky and dusky sea, extinguishes her torch and summons sleep. The artist’s close friend William Morris composed quatrains for each of the panels, inscribed below the entryways. Burne-Jones’s conceptions, along with the verses by Morris, resonate with the elemental shadows of life and death behind the personifications of Day and Night: “Awake arise from death to death” and “Thoughts unsaid twixt life and death.” Like many of Burne-Jones’s works, these two panels are executed in watercolor. His assistant noted that “when he painted in oil or watercolor he liked the same result, one like fresco or egg tempera, so he has puzzled people about his medium’s identity.”