The Madness of Sir Tristram stands both as a testament to Burne-Jones’ enthusiasm for Arthurian subjects which came to the fore in the late 1850s and as a forerunner of an old master and Italianate taste for idealism which became increasingly apparent in his work of the 1860s. This watercolour is worked up over a cartoon for a stained glass design (fig. 1) that was part of a commission given to the newly founded Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. in 1862. The firm made a series of thirteen panels based on the legend of Sir Tristram for the Bradford textile merchant, Walter Dunlop, for his house, Harden Grange at Bingley, Yorkshire. Of the panels which are now held in the Bradford City Art Gallery, Rossetti made two designs, Arthur Hughes, Val Prinsep and Madox Brown each made one while Morris and Burne-Jones worked on four a piece. The panels are illustrated in The Studio, November 1917. Burne-Jones designed; The Wedding of Sir Tristram, The Madness of Sir Tristram, King Mark preventing Iseult from slaying herself and The Tomb of Sir Tristram. The cartoons for The Wedding of Sir Tristram (destroyed by bomb damage in World War II) and the present drawing were both later worked up into watercolours in 1862 while another watercolour was made of King Mark and La Belle Iseult (Birmingham City Art Gallery). There are two pencil studies for the present watercolour, A nude figure drawing of Sir Tristram without his harp and A head study of Sir Tristram, (Tate, London). Burne-Jones was not alone in seeing the cartoons as starting points for finished easel paintings in their own right; in 1863 Ford Madox Brown used the composition from the Death of Sir Tristram for a watercolour and executed an oil version in 1864 (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery). Rossetti also worked up one of his designs for Iseult and Sir Tristram on the ship (Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford). This method of turning monochrome cartoons into independent watercolours became a common part of Burne-Jones’ practice, seen in other works such as The Garland. The mid 1850s saw a strong revival of interest in ancient Arthurian legend which was led by Rossetti’s infectious fascination with Thomas Malory’s tales of King Arthur and his Knights. Rossetti declared Le Morte d'Arthur and the Bible to be the two greatest books in the world. Interest was further enhanced by a discovery made by Burne-Jones in a Birmingham bookshop in 1855, when he found Robert Southey’s 1817 edition of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. William Morris immediately bought the book and Burne-Jones wrote in 1880 that we feasted on it long. Under Rossetti’s initiative, Burne-Jones had his first opportunity to paint an Arthurian subject in 1857 with the mural paintings in the new Debating Hall of the Oxford Union Society. Condition problems besieged the murals before completion but the medieval spirit was not dampened and Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur remained a compelling inspiration for Dunlop’s decorative scheme a few years later. The subject in the present watercolour derives from Book IX, Chapter IV, Tristram’s Madness and Exile of The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyones, which forms the fifth part of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. The scene shown here occurs when Sir Tristram discovers false evidence of Iseult’s love for Sir Kay Hedius. Tristram leaves his castle in despair and is driven to madness, he lives like a wild man in the forest, fed by herdsmen and shepherds. Tristram was renowned as a mighty hunter and an accomplished musician; here a lady has brought him his harp which he plays for the herdsmen. Burne-Jones finds expression for this medieval subject by drawing on a wide range of sources from German to Italianate old masters. Burne-Jones was aware of Dürer as an undergraduate at Oxford (1853-56) but it was both Rossetti and Ruskin who championed the study of the German master’s engravings. Burne-Jones eagerly followed their encouragement; Rossetti described a series of Burne-Jones’ pen and ink drawings dating between 1856 and 1861 as ’marvels of finish and imaginative detail, unequalled by anything except perhaps Albert Dürer’s finest works.’ Several differences between the stained glass and the watercolour of Sir Tristram indicate that Burne-Jones looked directly to Dürer while re-considering the composition. The glass panel shows an open landscape with a castle in the distance, whereas a dark forest fills the painting’s background. This forest setting is inspired by Dürer engravings of the Fall from the Small Passion and Expulsion (fig. 2). Another motif taken from Dürer is the hanging tablet which Dürer would have used to sign and date his prints while Burne-Jones adapts it to carry the relevant verse from Malory’s text. Burne-Jones’ refers directly to Dürer again in the last work from this series, Sir Tristram’s Tomb (drawing at Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, fig. 3.); the pair of dogs guarding the tomb are taken from Dürer’s St Eustace. Burne-Jones’ designs of the early 1860s also reflect a deep knowledge of works by old masters such as Giotto and Fra Angelico. At Ruskin’s encouragement Burne-Jones first visited Italy in 1859 with Val Prinsep. Sketch books in the Fitzwilliam Museum from this trip show Burne-Jones copying paintings such as Botticelli’s Primavera (Uffizi, Florence). References to Botticelli’s masterpiece shine through in Burne-Jones’ treatment of the mille fiori scattered like jewels around Sir Tristram. Burne-Jones’ knowledge and Ruskin’s influence were consolidated during the artist’s second trip to Italy in May 1862 in the company of his wife, Georgiana and Ruskin himself. Ruskin advocated a move away from crude medieval excess and encouraged a freer and more classical aesthetic derived from the Venetian masters. The differences between the stained glass and watercolour illustrate this view; the leering faces and roughly hewn expressions of the male figures around Sir Tristram in the stained glass are transformed into far more sensuous embodiments of classical beauty in the watercolour. The pig and third rustic herdsman in the stained glass do not appear in the watercolour as though all references to a bucolic realism are rejected in favour of an idealized beauty which was to characterise Burne-Jones’ later works. The watercolour’s first owner was Aglaia Coronio (1834-1906), a member of the Ionides family, a wealthy and cultured Anglo-Greek clan that played a prominent part in the annals of Victorian art. Aglaia was on close terms with many artists, particularly William Morris, to whom she was a confidante. She was painted by both G.F. Watts and Alphonse Legros, while Rossetti made a chalk drawing of her in 1870 (Ionides Bequest, Victoria & Albert Museum). At the turn of the century the work passed to Sir William Tate, the eldest son of Sir Henry Tate, the sugar merchant and Tate Gallery’s founding benefactor. Burne-Jones has evoked a powerful rendering of Sir Tristram’s tragic plight. References to Dürer and the Italian old masters fuse together with Burne-Jones’ own distinctive vision. It is a vision which imbues Sir Tristram and his followers with a lyrical and other worldly quality, making this one of Burne-Jones’ early masterpieces.
Sir Tristram de Lyonesse was one of the greatest of Arthurian knights. He was the son of Mediodas, King of Lyones and Elizabeth of Cornwall and revered not only for his fearlessness in battle but his hunting prowess. As a young man he met the beautiful Princess Iseult, daughter of King Angwish of Ireland, who was engaged to be married to Tristram’s uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. However, while on their way to the wedding, with Sir Tristram charged with the task of chaperoning the bride, the pair unwittingly drank a potion that caused them to fall deeply in love. In the present watercolour Burne-Jones depicts a moment when Sir Tristram, believing Iseult to be carrying on an affair with his friend Sir Kehydius, is driven to madness. He has cast himself out of his castle to live, as a vagabond, in the remote forest. He only survives thanks to the kindness of herdsman and shepherds and here he is seen serenading his companions with a harp. Burne-Jones was fascinated by the chivalrous world of King Arthur and his Knights. In 1855 he discovered, in a Birmingham bookshop, a copy of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, a book that was written in circa 1470 and that is today still considered to be the key English text on the subject. Dante Gabriel Rossetti believed it to be, along with the bible, one of ‘the two greatest books in the world’ and Burne-Jones noted that he and his friends ‘feasted on it long.’ The subject of the present watercolor is taken from the book of Sir Tristram de Lyones (Book IX), Chapter IV, Madness and Exile and the artist has inscribed the work with lines from Malory’s text on a scroll that is suspended from a tree: So would Sir Tristram come onto that harp and harken the melodious sound thereof and sometimes he would harp himself thus he endured there a quarter of a year. This highly finished watercolor is painted over a ‘cartoon’ for a stained glass window and dates to 1862. In that year Walter Dunlop, a Bradford textile magnate, had asked the newly-formed Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company to supply him with thirteen stained glass panels to decorate his home, Harden Grange, at Bingley in Yorkshire. The adventures of Sir Tristram were chosen as a subject and the firm commissioned Arthur Hughes (1832-1915), Val Prinsep (1838-1904), and Ford Maddox Brown (1821-1893) to make one panel each, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) to make two and William Morris (1834-1896) and Burne-Jones to create four apiece.1 Burne-Jones’ contributions to the cycle were: The Wedding of Sir Tristram; The Madness of Sir Tristram; King Mark preventing Iseult from slaying herself; and The Tomb of Sir Tristram. Of the four, he worked up all but one of the preliminary cartoons into independent watercolors. These were as follows: the present work, King Mark preventing Iseult from slaying herself (Birmingham City Art Gallery) and finally The Wedding of Sir Tristram (sadly destroyed in the Second World War). There are a number of differences between the stained glass version of the ‘Madness’ and the present work (fig. 1). Most obvious is the setting in which Burne-Jones places the knight and his companions. Whereas in the glass image, the figures are seen in open country, with Sir Tristram’s castle visible in the distance, here, they are enclosed in a dark forest. In this watercolor Burne-Jones successfully evokes the atmosphere of the medieval world. He has achieved this, in part, by drawing inspiration from artists of the early northern and Italian Renaissance. His passion for the old masters was both wide-ranging and profound. He spent many hours studying paintings and medieval manuscripts in London’s museums and he sought out prints and reproductions in books. Moreover, he made two important trips to Italy, via Paris, in 1859 and 1862. Sketchbooks from these tours survive in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and they demonstrate that he made copies of works by Giotto, Della Francesco and Botticelli. The manner in which Burne-Jones has chosen to place Tristram surrounded by a forest, carpeted with delicate flowers, suggests that he may have been thinking of Botticelli’s iconic Primavera (Uffizi, Florence). The woodcuts of Albrecht Durer could also have been an influence as thick woodland settings appears in both Durer’s woodcuts: The Fall of Man and the Expulsion of Adam and Eve (fig. 2). Furthermore, Burne-Jones’ use of the rectangular scroll, that hangs from the branches of a tree, also echoes Durer, who often incorporated the design in his own compositions. This work has a long and distinguished history and has not only been widely reproduced in the literature, but has appeared in some fifteen international exhibitions between 1892 and 2007. It was first owned by Aglaia Coronio (1834-1906). She was the daughter of Alexander Ionides, who had moved from Greece to London in the 1820s and settled in Manchester. Later he moved his family to London and from 1864 lived at 1 Holland Park, his home becoming a center for artistic London society. Aglaia was strikingly beautiful and was painted by Rossetti, Watts and Burne-Jones,2 she was also a confidante of William Morris. Many members of the Ionides family were important patrons of the arts but perhaps the most significant was Aglaia’s brother, Constantine Ionides (1833-1900), for on his death, he left 1138 major pictures, drawings and prints to the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1906, the work was acquired by Sir William Tate, 2nd Bt. He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Tate, the sugar refiner, whose extraordinary business success enabled him to endow a new gallery at Millbank in London called The National Gallery for British Art. Today it is better known as the Tate Gallery. 1. These stained glass panels are now held in the Bradford City Art Gallery. 2. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, The Mill, Victoria and Albert Museum. Sotheby's 2017
Placard hanging from the central tree inscribed "So would Sir Tristram come unto his harp And hearken the melodious sound thereof and Some-time he would harp himself - Thus he Endured there a quarter of a year"