While attending Oxford, Burne-Jones and his friend William Morris, the artist, writer, and socialist, were enraptured by Arthurian legends, and held a particular affinity for the gallant and pure Sir Galahad, who sought the Holy Grail. This is one of a group of drawings of medieval subjects executed by Burne-Jones in the summer of 1858. It was inspired by Tennyson’s poem Sir Galahad, published in 1842: “O just and faithful knight of God!/Ride on! The prize is near.” The knight, on his “goodly charger borne,” steadfastly rides past the figures in the background who are engaged in earthly and bodily pleasures. He does not exist in their realm; his steed’s frosty breath suggests that he is separated from them atmospherically as well as in body and spirit. The drawing is finely rendered on vellum, or calf-skin, in a deliberate reference to medieval manuscripts. The composition is borrowed from Dürer’s famous engraving Knight, Death, and the Devil, of 1513–14.
Manuscript illustration from fol. 071r Le roman de la rose Shelfmark: Bodleian Library MS. Douce 195 Holding Institution: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Date Statement: 15th century, end Place of Origin: France Language: French, Middle (ca. 1400-1600) Catalogue Description: Catalogue of Western Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries Author: Guillaume de Lorris Jean de Meun Burne-Jones and Morris visited the Bodleian library to look at manuscripts while they were students, so that from an early age they were aware of this script.