It was Burne-Jones’s common practice to work out subjects on a large scale in chalk or pastel, before or even during work on a major oil painting, for guidance in color and tone. This cartoon reproduces the composition of The Heart of the Rose, the companion painting to The Pilgrim at the Gate of Idleness, completed for William Connal in 1889. 1 An earlier design in pencil, with the female figure more literally perched in the rosebush, is in the "Secret" Book of Designs (cat. no. 140). 2 The Romaunt of the Rose follows Guillaume de L orris in offering the poet a vision of the rose through an enchanted mir- ror. In this composition Burne-Jones makes a literal rendering of the personification of ideal love, enthroned within a rosebush; clearly this was intended to match and complement the appear- ance of Idleness in the other oil, even retaining the green dress to maintain color balance. The winged figure of the God of Love offers a distant echo of Burne-Jones s depictions of Cupid and Amor in watercolors and decorative designs of the early 1860s (see cat. no. 29). Morris s verse offers a simple gloss: The ending of the tale ye see; The lover draws anigh the tree, And takes the branch, and takes the rose, That love and he so dearly chose. 1. Reproduced in color (along with The Pilgrim at the Gate of Idleness) in Viva Victoria (exh. cat., London: Roy Miles Fine Paintings Ltd., June 4-27, 1980), pp. 44-47- 2. British Museum, London (1899-7-13-390).
Fitzwilliam work list : 1881 Romance of the Rose worked on 1882 Worked on Romance of the Rose It is uncertain as to which particular part of the story he refers to, the two references indicate how the story continued to intrigue him.... Evolution of the Heart as a rose blossom: The subject underwent a series of metamorphosis from the Rose being a full length maiden in the embroidery design to being converted into a rose with the maiden's face at its centre in the present drawing, which then became further modified in the Kelmscott Chaucer c.1892. The Heart of the Rose was again portrayed as a maiden seated in a rose bush in the oil painting of 1889. NB: It is possible that Norton purchased or was given the drawing directly from the artist after having been photographed by Hollyer and any subsequent illustrations are from Hollyer's negative. The swirling metalwork on the door refers to a favourite medieval motif in the illuminations of the story as in the illustrated example held in the Bibliotheque ,Nationale, Paris