Frederick Hollyer, After Sir Edward Burns-Jones (British, 1833-1898) 'The Beguiling of Merlin"
This print, after Edward Burne-Jones, was made by the platinotype process perfected by printmaker-photographer Frederick Hollyer (1837-1933), from the early 1870s onward. lined with tissue paper inscribed "hollyer no 40" in pencil.
Image:50.5 x 30cm.
Original Frame and mount : 84 x 62cm
From the collection of the late John Schaeffer AO.
The Beguiling of Merlin is a painting by Edward Burne-Jones that was created between 1872 and 1877.
The painting depicts a scene from the Arthurian legend about the infatuation of Merlin with the Lady of the Lake, Nimue. Merlin is shown trapped, helpless in a Hawthorne bush as Nimue reads from a book of spells.
The work was commissioned from Burne-Jones by Frederick Leylands a Liverpool ship-owner and art-collector, in the late 1860s. After a false start blamed on "poor materials", Burne-Jones began work on the painting proper in 1873, finishing the body of the work by the end of 1874; however, the painting was not first exhibited until 1877 at the opening exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in London.
Burne-Jones used Maria Zambaco, who was probably his mistress from 1866 to 1872.
The original work is in The Lady Lever Art Gallery. U.K.