The "seven blissfullest years of work" ended abruptly in 1877, when Burne-Jones contributed eight paintings to the first exhibition at the newly built Grosvenor Gallery. 1 Opened on May 1 in the heart of the London art world at 135-7 New Bond Street (fig. 85), the gallery was the brainchild of Sir Coutts Lindsay, Scottish landowner, connoisseur, and an amateur artist himself. His wife, Blanche, was also a talented painter, and it was she, a Rothschild, who defrayed much of the buildings cost. The Lindsays' intimate involvement with the project, which included their own work and that of other titled amateurs appearing at the annual exhibitions, gave it from the outset an aristocratic tone. The private view was a great and well-pub- licized social event, and the Prince and Princess of Wales headed a glittering list of celebrity guests at the opening din- ner. This was held in the basement restaurant, a novel and popular amenity. In keeping with the Lindsays' taste, the architect, W. J. Sams, had designed a building in the Italian style; indeed, the door- way was said to be by Palladio, having come from a demol- ished church in Venice. 2 The decoration was so sumptuous that it was generally considered to kill the pictures it had been designed to enhance, but the lighting was sensitive, and the introduction of electricity in 1882 was a great innovation. The display of the pictures was equally revolutionary. At the Royal Academy and other older institutions it was customary to hang them like postage stamps from floor to ceiling and to scatter an artist's exhibits. At the Grosvenor they were hung together and given plenty of space to further increase their impact. This was not the only way in which the Grosvenor set out to be a liberal alternative to the Academy, which had since 1869 been established less than a mile away in Burlington House, Piccadilly Whereas at the Academy an artist had to submit his pictures to a committee, which had the power to accept or reject them, at the Grosvenor artists were invited to contribute by Sir Coutts and his two lieutenants, Charles Hallé and Joseph Comyns Carr, who would tour the studios beforehand, selecting suitable exhibits. The aim was to make the Grosvenor a showcase for all that was most adventurous in modern British art, and it was immediately perceived as the flagship of the Aesthetic movement. Certainly Academicians exhibited, including old Sir Francis Grant, the president, Frederic Leighton, who was to succeed Grant the following year to become the most prestigious holder of the office since Reynolds, and his two fellow classicists Poynter and Alma- Tadema. But Grant's aristocratic portraits were in keeping with the social ethos, while the three classicists all in some degree subscribed to the cult of beauty, which was synony- mous with Aestheticism. Other progressive artists who showed at the opening exhibition included Whistler, Moore, Watts, Legros, Hubert von Herkomer, James Tissot (resident in London since the Franco-Prussian War), and two exponents of the Etruscan school of landscape painting, Leighton's friend Giovanni Costa and Burne-Jones's former pupil and current patron, George Howard. The older Pre-Raphaelite generation was represented by Millais and Holman Hunt, but Rossetti and Madox Brown declined to exhibit, Rossetti objecting to the inclusion of Academicians and Brown showing his usual touchiness. In writing to the Grosvenor management to explain why he could not participate, Rossetti paid generous tribute to Burne-Jones, emphasizing that his association alone would ensure the project s success. Even he, however, can hardly have foreseen the truth of this prophecy. Burne-Jones's eight pictures, all large in scale, were The Beguiling of Merlin (cat. no. 64) and The Mirror of Venus (fig. 86), both of which belonged to Leyland, The Days of Creation (fig. 79), which had been bought by Graham, and five single standing figures: Temperantia (1872-73; private collection), Fides (fig. 81), Spes (1871-77; Art Gallery, Dunedin), A Sibyl (1877; private collec- tion), and Saint George (cat. no. 85). All hung together in the West Gallery, the main room on the first floor - the three large compositions below, The Days of Creation in the middle, and the single figures in a row above. It was an overwhelming demonstration of his mature powers, all the more dramatic since he had been absent from London galleries for so long. Moreover, his own presence was supported by that of three followers, Spencer Stanhope, J. M. Strudwick, and Walter Crane, all of whom were also shown in the West Gallery, and of two women who were working in the same tradition, Marie Spartali (1844-1927) and Evelyn Pickering (1855-1919); one of the virtues of the Grosvenor was that it supported and pro- moted women artists. In other words, an entire school sud- denly seemed to have emerged, with Burne-Jones as its undisputed leader. No other artist on display could compete. Overnight he was famous, the star of the Grosvenor and the doyen of Aestheticism in its fully developed form.
