The subject of these two drawings is taken from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590), book 3, canto 12. In one drawing (cat. no. 61) Britomart, the "fair" or "bold Britonesse" who represents maidenly purity, stands to the left, watching the masque of Cupid in the house of Busyrane. The figures to her right seem to be what Spenser describes as a "rude con- fused rout" of unhappy personifications — Strife, Anger, Care, Infirmity, Loss of Time, and others, harried by Death himself brandishing a sword. This, however, is not entirely clear, and it is curious that the drawing bears the inscription "Luxorii," since no such abstract value is represented in the masque. The figures in the other drawing (cat. no. 60) are easier to identify: Cupid is seen riding a lion and preceded by Despight and Cruelty, "two grysie villeins," who lead and savagely torture Dame Amoret. These fine drawings come from a group of three in the National Museum and Gallery of Wales, all showing the figures nude. They date from 1872 when Burne-Jones, in the full flush of inspiration following his third visit to Italy the pre- vious year, wrote in his work record that there were "4 subjects which above all others I desire to paint, and count my chief designs for some years to come," and then went on to identify one of them as "the Vision of Britomart; in 3 pictures . . . life size." It is not clear why he was so anxious to paint the subject on this scale, or indeed to illustrate Spenser at all, since the poet was not an author, so far as we know, to whom he was par- ticularly attached. Perhaps he was influenced by Ruskin's ten- dency to use "The Masque of Cupid" and other allegorical passages in Spenser to illuminate moral precepts, or perhaps by G. F. Watts s long-standing interest in the poet, expressed most notably in the painting Britomart and Her Nurse (Bir- mingham Art Gallery), which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1878. It is also possible that the concept owed something to the processional paintings favoured by two other artists in Burne-Jones s circle, Frederic Leighton and Walter Crane. Whatever the case, the work hung fire. Maybe its inspi- ration was never as deep-seated as he had imagined, or possi- bly, like the Troy triptych (cat. no. 50), it was simply conceived in too-ambitious terms. Burne-Jones did return to the scheme in later life. According to one source, it was "subsequently drawn out again, about two-thirds life-size, on canvas for tapestry, but abandoned," and then "taken up again, for the third time," in 1898/ Another authority links the project to "mural decoration," but confuses the drawings in question. 2 All we know for certain is that in the last year or two of his life, Burne-Jones recast the composi- tion in at least two watercolour designs, clearly for some sort of room decoration and in his most disembodied late style. 3 Georgie Burne-Jones mentions his doing so but suggests that, even if he had lived, he would once again have let the idea drop. "About this time," she wrote, "he took up again the designs made in 1872 for 'The Masque of Cupid,' but on looking freshly at the poem he found it had become quite unreadable to him, and the names in it, as in the Pilgrims Progress, actually repellent." 4 The present drawings have an interesting provenance, hav- ing been bought at Burne-Jones's second studio sale by the sculptor Sir William Goscombe John (1860-1952). Goscombe John had a certain link with the Pre-Raphaelites, as he had started his career working for one of their associates, the Gothic Revival architect William Burges (1827-1881), while as a Welshman he would have been interested in Burne-Jones, who had Welsh blood on his father's side. In any case, these strong working drawings are of a type that would have appealed to a practising artist. [jc] 1. Burlington Fine Arts Club 1899, p. 4, under no. 7. 2. De Lisle 1904, p. 189. 3. Two of these drawings (there may be a third) were exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1899, nos. 7, 45. The former, illustrated here, was sold at Sotheby's, London, July 10, 1995, lot 93. 4. Memorials, vol. 2, p. 306.