The Perseus Series Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones

This book showcases one of the treasures of Southampton City ArtGallery’s nationally-important Designated fine art collection: SirEdward Coley Burne-Jones’s Perseus Series.Burne-Jones (1833–98) was a British artist and designer closelyassociated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. In1875 the politician Lord Arthur Balfour commissioned Burne-Jones,whose work was often inspired by mythology and legend, to create aseries of paintings for his London home. The artist chose to re-tellthe story of the Perseus myth in William Morris’s poem ‘The EarthlyParadise’ and worked on the project for ten years but it was nevercompleted. Southampton City Art Gallery has ten full-size studies ingouache, ‘cartoons’ which Burne-Jones made to perfect his designsbefore beginning the final paintings in oil.The book includes an essay about Burne-Jones, the commission andan account of the epic Perseus story with detailed descriptions ofeach of the works in narrative form.