SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. | Orpheus and his Lute; Eurydice Bitten by a Serpent; Orpheus and Eurydice Reunited; Orpheus Pursued by Furies

Collection of Margaret Mackail, daughter of the artist;

Abbot & Holder, London, where purchased in 1951 by the grandparents of the present owner

W. Dale, The Artistic Treatment of the Exterior of the P'forte, Journal of the Society of Arts, I.V., 1906-7, p366

According to Burne-Jones’ account books, these drawings were made in 1872, seven years before Burne-Jones designed the circular roundels for the exterior of a famous piano made for his most loyal patron William Graham. Burne-Jones chose a suitably musical subject for the imagery, depicting the story of the musician Orpheus, who ventured to the Underworld to plead with Pluto and Proserpine for life to be restored to his wife Eurydice, who had been killed by a snake-bite. There are a set of ten pencil designs for the piano panels at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Of the earlier gouache designs, there are examples at Tate and in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and two more are known, Orpheus Losing Eurydice and Orpheus Encountering Sisyphus (Christie’s, London, 7 June 2001, lot 24 and 25).