Known also as the Song of Songs or the Canticles, the Song of Solomon was a natural choice of biblical subject for Burne-Jones, having little overt religious content but much in the way of lyrical word-painting and allegorical allusion. Described by Burne-Jones in his work record as "designs from the Song of Solomon — for painting on panel some day," a sequence of five large pencil drawings has usually been associ- ated with other designs of a vertical format, destined to be exe- cuted in needlework (see cat. no. 130), although only one such embroidery is known. 1 They are of an exceptional precision and delicacy, extending beyond even the Aeneid drawings (cat. no. 66) in the artist's meticulous delight in elaborating the loops and swirls of the drapery's clinging to even more elon- gated figures. Malcolm Bell, the artist's first biographer, identified the likely source of these hieratic figures in the fifteenth-century engravings by Baccio Baldim and Antonio Pollaiuolo after Botticelli, and especially the edition of Dante published by Niccolo di Lorenzo della Magna in 1481. 2 The two sheets now at Birmingham are the third and the last in the set. The first four subjects are devoted to Solomon's expression of love, both spiritual and sensual, for his beloved, the Bride of Lebanon, whom he finally reveals to the world. Her statuesque depiction with the symbolic representation of the winds was later converted into a huge watercolor, exhibit- ed at the New Gallery in 1891 under the title Sponsa di Libano. 3 1. Harrison and Waters 1973, p. 118. The other three drawings, which were exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1899 (no. 141), belonged to Frances Horner (nee Graham), who worked a number of pieces of embroidery after Burne-Jones's designs. 2. Bell 1892, p. 102. 3. Burne-Jones's idiosyncratic mixture of seriousness and humor is con- veyed by this anecdote, concerning the 18 91 watercolor: "In a letter to Lady Rayleigh there is mention of a scene with a model from whom he drew the heads of the Winds who breathe upon the garden of the Bride, 'I drew the South wind one day and the North wind the next. Such a queer little model I had, a little Houndsditch Jewess, self-possessed, mature and worldly, and only about twelve years old. When I said to her, 'Think of nothing and feel silly and look wild and blow with your lips,' she threw off Houndsditch in a moment, and she might have been born in Lebanon, instead of the Cockney which she was' " {Memorials, vol. 2, p. 215).
Inscribed with verses from the Vulgate, Song of Solomon, 7:6, 16:4: QUAE EST ISTA QUAE ASCENDIT DE DESERTO DELICIIS AFFLUENS INNIXA SUPER DILECTUM SUUM (Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness leaning upon her beloved?) A sketch for the present design is in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery no B 805 (1904P189.04). Of the five foreground girls only the right hand figure does not gaze at the approaching couple, and she resembles Maria Zambaco and her portrait occupies the same position in The Garden of the Hesperides.
This is the fifth and final design illustration for 'The Song of Solomon', with a quotation from Chapter 7, verse 6: 'Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness'. Maria Zambaco modelled for the figure of the girl in left profile, on the far right.
In January 1869 his wife Georgina found a letter from Maria in his clothing and Burne-Jones reluctantly ended the affair.
Rossetti letter to Madox Brown 23 January 1869: Poor Ned's affairs have come to a smash altogether, and he and Topsy, after the most dreadful to-do, started for Rome suddenly, leaving the Greek damsel beating up the quarters of all his friends for him and howling like Cassandra. Georgie stayed behind. I hear to-day however that Top and Ned got no further than Dover, Ned being so dreadfully ill that they will probably have to return to London.