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 colour 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 Lorris 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 colour balance. The winged figure of the God of Love offers a distant echo of Burne-Jones s depictions of Cupid and Amor in watercolours 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 colour (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).
Philip Burne-Jones gives a detailed description of the role of pastel compositions in the formation of an oil painting in his article "Notes on some unfinished works of Sir Edward Burne-Jones BT." in the Magazine of Art 1900 p 159.