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By Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Don Abbondio walking beside Lake Como illustration from The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (1827, published in English 1828 and 1834)
Pencil on paper
1845
Birmingham, England
Dimensions: 6.4 cm x 10 cm
Collection Categories
Illustration, Works on Paper / Vellum
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  • Provenance
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  • Bibliography

Alessandro Manzoni's famous novel, first published in 1827, had run to four English editions by 1845, and these drawings probably date from a few years later. They are most certainly Burne-Jones's earliest surviving work. Although they owe much to conventional illustration of the day, Burne-Jones felt that drawings of this kind were prophetic. In 1890 he wrote of his early attempts to draw: 'I never failed to draw mountains at the back of everything just as I do now, though I'd never seen one.'

Two more very early drawings of a child reading and a Gothic chapel on a bridge, are pasted to the back of the sheet (H & W, figs 4-5). The child reading is copied from The comic album, 1843.

John Christian
18/06/2023
Owner Dates Owned Further Info. and Accession no. circa
Archibald Maclaren 1848 Probably given by EB-J to Archibald Maclaren
Exhibition Catalogue no, Page no, Illustration no. Institution/Venue People From To
The Paintings, Graphic and Decorative Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833-1898 (1975-6) Cat. no. 1 p. 17 (two in the cat no., shown with The Castle of the Unnamed. with Don Rodrigo and his bravoes ascending the hillside 6.4 x 10.2 cms) The Hayward Gallery
November 1975 January 1976
The Paintings, Graphic and Decorative Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833-1898 (1975-6) Cat. no. 1 p. 17 (two in the cat no., shown with The Castle of the Unnamed. with Don Rodrigo and his bravoes ascending the hillside 6.4 x 10.2 cms) Southampton City Art Gallery
January 1976 February 1976
The Paintings, Graphic and Decorative Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833-1898 (1975-6) Cat. no. 1 p. 17 (two in the cat no., shown with The Castle of the Unnamed. with Don Rodrigo and his bravoes ascending the hillside 6.4 x 10.2 cms) Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery
March 1976 April 1976
Title Author/Editor Year Page No. & Illustrations Attachments
Burne-Jones William Waters, Martin Harrison 1973
illus fig. 3 p. 2
Burne-Jones: the paintings, graphic and decorative work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833-98, Hayward Gallery , Southampton City Art Gallery, Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery 1975-6 John Christian, Miss Penelope Marcus 1975
Cat. no. 1 p. 17 (two in the cat no., shown with The Castle of the Unnamed. with Don Rodrigo and his bravoes ascending the hillside 6.4 x 10.2 cms)


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