The Garden Court (1870–75): Art, History and Details
The Garden Court at the Cleveland Museum of Art: 1870–75, graphite and watercolor, heightened with white gouache. Explore the work's context, creator attribution and collection history.
The Garden Court (1870–75) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Edward Burne-Jones (British, 1833–1898).
The work and its context
The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:
The story of Briar Rose (known popularly as "Sleeping Beauty") occupied Edward Burne-Jones on and off for much of his career. He completed three related sets of paintings of the subject over a 30-year period. This drawing probably relates to the first series, now in the Museo de Arte in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Here, vines twist in arabesques against a flat, chartreuse background, as though ensnaring the six servants asleep at a loom and well.
Object facts
- Title: The Garden Court
- Date: 1870–75
- Creator attribution: Edward Burne-Jones (British, 1833–1898)
- Culture: England, 19th century
- Type: Drawing
- Technique: graphite and watercolor, heightened with white gouache
- Dimensions: Matted: 54.3 x 81.4 x 0.8 cm (21 3/8 x 32 1/16 x 5/16 in.); Frame: 61.3 x 88.9 x 3.2 cm (24 1/8 x 35 x 1 1/4 in.); Image: 32.3 x 60.2 cm (12 11/16 x 23 11/16 in.)
- Collection: DR - British
- Department: Drawings
- Accession number: 1994.197
A detail from the museum
Art historian Andrea Wolk Rager has interpreted this drawing as related to Edward Burne-Jones's socialist beliefs, identifying the weaver at right in the work as a personification of artistic labor, dormant in industrialized Victorian society.
Collection credit
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Further reading listed by the museum
- Cartwright, Julia. The Life and Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones Bart. London: Art Journal, 1894.
- Exhibition of Drawings and Studies by Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Exh. Cat. London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1899.
View the collection record
See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.
Sources
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