Merlin and Nimue
Watercolour
1861 (painted)
1861 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a prose translation of the medieval French poem, was first printed in 1485. It became the main source in English of the legends surrounding King Arthur. Burne-Jones first came across this text in a Birmingham bookshop in 1855 and thereafter returned again and again to Arthurian subjects. Here the wizard Merlin has fallen in love with 'a lady of the lake', Nimue, whom he taught some magic secrets. She tired of him and lured him under a rock, from which even his magic could not effect an escape. Burne-Jones shows the stone in the form of a gravestone, which rises under the spell that Nimue incants from her magic book, drawing Merlin inexorably towards the gaping tomb that awaits him. The connection with the written source is made explicit by a quotation from Book IV inscribed on the frame, 'so by her subtle craft and working she made Merlin to go under that stone'. Fanny Cornforth modelled the figure of Nimue.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Parts | This object consists of 2 parts.
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| Title | Merlin and Nimue (generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Watercolour and bodycolour |
| Brief description | Watercolour of Merlin and Nimue by Edward Burne-Jones, England, 1861. |
| Physical description | A full length man and woman, both in flowing reddish robes and facing left in a landscape. The woman, who has long fair hair is to the viewer's left and has a volume in her hands.To the right are large slabs of stone. The man is behind her. He wears a headdress and has a small black dog at his feet. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Literary reference | Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur |
| Summary | Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a prose translation of the medieval French poem, was first printed in 1485. It became the main source in English of the legends surrounding King Arthur. Burne-Jones first came across this text in a Birmingham bookshop in 1855 and thereafter returned again and again to Arthurian subjects. Here the wizard Merlin has fallen in love with 'a lady of the lake', Nimue, whom he taught some magic secrets. She tired of him and lured him under a rock, from which even his magic could not effect an escape. Burne-Jones shows the stone in the form of a gravestone, which rises under the spell that Nimue incants from her magic book, drawing Merlin inexorably towards the gaping tomb that awaits him. The connection with the written source is made explicit by a quotation from Book IV inscribed on the frame, 'so by her subtle craft and working she made Merlin to go under that stone'. Fanny Cornforth modelled the figure of Nimue. |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | 257-1896 |
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| Record created | December 15, 1999 |
| Record URL |
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