This monumental and dramatic watercolour probably dates to the mid-1890s and is an enlarged and elaborated version of a drawing in gold paint on prepared paper dated 1893 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). The smaller drawing was given by Burne-Jones to his platonic but close friend Helen Gaskell, one of the many gifts of pictures that he presented to her as a mark of his friendship. In both pictures, the solitary figure of the woman lifting her arms to the heavens is probably intended to depict Spes, the Roman Goddess of Hope. She is clad in a gown of deep-green, the colour associated with Hope by the ancients and chosen by Burne-Jones' friend Rossetti to represent the hope of resurrection for Proserpine (Tate). At her feet are briar-roses and white lilies, symbolic of love and birth - associated with the birth of Venus and the annunciation of the Madonna. The blooming flowers pushing their heads Heavenward are generic symbols of rejuvenation and rebirth but they also have particular symbolism for the artist as they feature significantly in his paintings. Wild-roses are particularly associated with Burne-Jones' Briar Rose series of paintings (Faringdon Collection, Buscot Park, Oxfordshire) and also with his pictorial saga of Cupid and Psyche. The allegory of 'Hope' was one that Burne-Jones painted on several occasions during his career. The earliest known depiction was one of Burne-Jones' first attempts at painting in oils, made c.1862. It showed a red-haired woman in a voluminous- sleeved Venetian gown holding a ball inscribed with the same proverb that gives the present picture its title. The picture was similar to the half-length portraits by Burne-Jones' mentor Dante Gabriel Rossetti and although the original is lost, it is known from a replica by Burne-Jones' assistant Edward Clifford and from an oil sketch (private collection). This depiction of Hope shared little with Burne-Jones later paintings of Spes, other than the subject. In January 1871 Burne-Jones designed three cartoons for the windows of the nave at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. They portrayed the three Christian virtues and each cartoon was later painted over in watercolour to form independent works of art; Faith (Vancouver Art Gallery) and Hope (Dunedin Public Art Gallery) in 1871, and Charity (private collection) in 1872. Burne-Jones preferred sets of four images and therefore added Temperance (private collection) to the set of watercolours in 1872. In 1896 when Burne-Jones was commissioned to paint an oil for a private collector in Massachusetts, he first chose to depict Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn. However, grief-stricken following the death of his great friend William Morris in the same year, Burne-Jones proposed to paint a replica of the Hope watercolour instead (Museum of Fine Art, Boston). This picture was close in inspiration to the present picture and also depicted a lone maiden in green robes reaching up to an enigmatic heavenly cloud. However in this picture, she is imprisoned and enchained, whilst in If Hope were not, Heart Should Break the figure is more optimistic as the woman is freed from her tomb and about to take flight towards the starry sky. In the library at New College, Oxford is a pencil drawing dedicated by Burne-Jones to Sir Alfred Milner dated April 15 1897. Inscribed 'SPES' it depicts a woman with arms raised aloft to a starry sky, climbing a hill. It relates closely (although a mirror image) to the present watercolour which appears to be one of two versions of Hope painted in 1897, one seen in the background of a photograph of children from the East End slums visiting the Burne-Jones exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1901. The only perceivable difference between the two versions, is the addition of the swirling blue-green veil in the present picture. Ethereal flying figures were a theme particularly explored by Burne-Jones in the 1890s in a series of remarkably powerful watercolours. These pictures are his most Symbolist experiments and evoke the style of several of his contemporaries who were moved by a desire to depict psychological and emotional states of mind. The subject of Hope had been depicted by Burne-Jones' friend George Frederic Watts in his most famous and celebrated painting and it is likely that Burne-Jones had Watts' image in mind when he created his own highly symbolic picture. Sotheby's 2016
Though similar to known designs from the Master's hand, this watercolour is the work of a studio assistant. The loose application of the paint, and the drawing style suggests that it is possibly by Seymour Garstin Harvey 1875 - 1953, who was an assistant in the 1890s. Burne-Jones visited the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua in 1862 and copied the Virtues and Vices in the frescoes by Giotto for Ruskin.
The picture is a greatly enlarged version of a drawing in gold paint on prepared paper that was executed by Burne-Jones for Helen Mary 9may) Gaskell in 1893 (fig. 1). Mrs Gaskell was the last of the young women with whom the artist formed romantic attachments in later life. their relationship has recently been chronicled by Mary's great-grand-daughter Josceline Dimbleby in her book A Profound Secret (London, 2004), and is currently the subject of an exhibition at Leighton house. the affair could be nothing but platonic . Both parties were married, and Mrs Gaskell , who was twenty-five years younger than Burne-Jones, enjoyed a busy family life, with husband in the army, three children and three houses. Nonetheless it was typical of Burne-Jones too play whimsically with the idea of fulfillment, and the drawing of Hope should clearly be seen in this context. our painting must be more or less contemporary. Burne-jones had treated the theme of hope on many previous occasions, and drew on earlier versions for the present composition. His first treatment, a watercolour of 1862 (private collection), is very different in conception, being a "Venetian" half length female figure of the Burne-Jones, Rossetti and other artists in their circle were painting at this period. A copy, probably by Edward Clifford, was in the Arts Council's Burne-Jones Exhibition, 1975, no.35, (illustrated in catalogue), and an unfinished oil version was with Christie's in June 1985 (fig. 2). in the watercolour, the figure holds sphere which bears the same inscription - "If hope were not, heart should break" - as appears at the bottom of the present picture. This phrase, said to be a 13th -Century proverb, clearly fascinated Burne-Jones, who used it yet again in a design for a hammered silver book-cover shown in the Arts and Craft Exhibition of 1896 (illustrated Studio, IX, 1897, p.120). His other treatments of the theme of Hope were designed for stained glass, in which Hope is usually shown looking up and touching the sky with her hand. By far the most popular was that designed in January 1871 for a window in the Cathedral at Christ Church, Oxford; it was repeated many times in stained glass and there are two easel versions, a watercolour of 1871 (fig. 3) and an oil of 1896 (Boston, Mass), in which the figure is seen chained by the ankle in a prison cell but reaching up to touch the sky which has miraculously penetrated the heavily barred window behind her. in the present picture the action of touching the sky is retained, although instead of being imprisoned the figure rises from a tomb. Burne-Jones often introduced flowers or foliage as a further symbol of the eternal renewal if hope. the 1862 watercolour has a foliage background, and in the Dunedin/Boston paintings Hope carries a bunch of apple blossom in her right hand. In the present picture roses and lilies actually sprout from the tomb, a motif which, as Burne-Jones would have known, often appears in old master paintings of the Assumption of the Virgin. these flowers are omitted in the Ashmolean drawing (fig. 1), which has a coastal landscape background. Christies 9 June 2004