This exquisite study demonstrates Burne-Jones's constant concern to fix an idea or a particular pose. In the first two treatments of the subject — a gouache in blue grisaille (Carlisle Art Gallery) and a watercolor from a set of the four Story of Troy panels, signed and dated 1871 (Watts Gallery, Compton) 1 — Fortune is depicted blindfold. The artist here considers the equal potency of revealing the figure's full profile, echoing the idealized beauty of her male victims, while ren- dering the sense of implacability by showing her with closed eyes. That this is indeed intended as a study for The Wheel of Fortune is shown by the absence of any suggestion of the models hair, which Burne-Jones already had in mind to con- ceal beneath classical headgear. 2 If the date of 1872 on this sheet is to be believed (and many drawings were dated retrospectively for exhibition purposes in the 1890s), Burne-Jones would have returned to this study when he began work on the large oil painting in 1875. 3 Subsequent studies for the male figures can be linked to known further progress on the painting in 1879, 1881, and 1883. 4 The drawing is one of a group of three presented by the artist to the Musee du Luxembourg in recognition of his election as a cor- responding member of the Academie des Beaux- Arts in 1892. 1. Christian 1984b, figs. 3, 4. 2. According to Mrs. Comyns Carr, wife of one of the directors of the Grosvenor Gallery, Fortunes cap was finally painted from "a quaint lit- tle bonnet" of her own design {Mrs. J. Comyns Carrs Reminiscences, edit- ed by Eve Adam [London, 1926], p. 62). 3. Two further studies for the head of Fortune, in monochrome oil, are clearly of a later date and taken from a different model (Christian 1984b, figs. 10, 11). 4. A fine pencil study of the muscular torso of the king, in the British Museum (Arts Council 1975-76, no. 126), bears a retrospective inscrip- tion with the date 1879 and an incorrect identification as a study for the slave. An equivalent study for the slave, without inscription, appeared at Sotheby's Belgravia, March 24, 1981, lot 51.
Signed and dated EBJ 1872