Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898)
Provenance
Janet Camp Troxell;
Christie's, London, 21 February 1989, lot 109;
Christie's, London, 28 November 2000, lot 37;
Christopher Wood, London;
The Gallery, Reigate;
Private Collection, New York
Literature
J.C. Troxell, Three Rossettis, Harvard, 1937, illustrated p.4 (identified as by Rossetti)
V. Surtees, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Catalogue Raisonne, London, 1971, I, p.161, no. 290 (identified as by Rossetti)
C. Wood, Burne-Jones, London, 1998, p.76
K. Stonell Walker, Stunner: The Rise and Fall of Fanny Cornforth, London, 2006, p. 63
Online Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonné: https://www.eb-j.org/browse-artwork-detail/MTk4ODA=
This study, done in 1861, is of model Fanny Cornforth posing for the figure of Venus in Burne-Jones’s early watercolour of Laus Veneris (1861, private collection). Fanny was famously one of Rossetti’s favourite models and muses, and this particular study of her was originally thought to have been by him. Handsome and worldly, the Sussex blacksmith’s daughter entered Rossetti’s life in 1856. and was probably his mistress even before he married Lizzie Siddal in May 1860. Certainly when he moved to Cheyne Walk following Lizzie's death two years later, Fanny came too as his housekeeper. Her rather coarse good looks and abundant blonde hair, described by William Michael as 'light golden' or 'harvest yellow', made her a perfect muse for Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and their circle, who cast her as languid goddesses and dangerous temptresses.
The sketches verso are also studies done in 1861, for Clerk Saunders (Tate)