Mar 30 2024
'I hope if Edward is 'looking down' he won't be offended by my possibly irreverent use of his creation.' The painting was actually unfinished when he died in 1898, and currently hangs in the V&A museum in Kensington, having been given it by his wife, Lady Burne-Jones, in 1909.
The painting is itself based on a poem as this extract from the V&A website notes ~
The triumphal procession of Love was a common theme in Medieval and Renaissance literature and art. However, the specific basis of Burne-Jones's composition in The Car of Love is a long allegorical poem by the 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch, the Trionfior Triumphs. The poet has a vision of a number of victorious pageants or triumphal processions, in which historical, Biblical or mythological figures take part. The first triumph is that of Love over the human heart; the next is Chastity, which triumphs over Love; followed in turn by Death, Fame, Time, and finally Eternity, which triumphs over all.