Study for "Laus Veneris"

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt ARA (1833-1898)

Pencil

8 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches

"This is a study for the left-most musician waiting in vain for a signal from Venus to resune playing in his painting Laus Veneris (1873-78). The model was Frances Graham (later Lady Horner) in about 1875. Frances was the daughter of Burne-Jones's patron William Graham, and in the early 1870s the latest of a series of infatuations that possessed the artist throughout his life. Frances wrote that their friendship coloured my whole life', and a friend recounted that 'if she had been born ten years later she would have run off with Burne-Jones'. Her profile was Burne-Jones's favourite aspect" (Maas catalogue).

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