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Commentary by Hilary Morgan

The title of this cartoon derives from the vision of Divine Love that concludes Dante's Divine Comedy. Burne Jones visualised it as an angel guarding humanity. The format derives from the Renaissance iconography of the Madonna of Mercy. A similar image is to be found on Memling's St Ursula Shrine, a work which enthralled Burne-Jones from the beginning of his career. His wife recalled: 'I remember his giving nearly all that he had for a set of photographs of Memling's "St. Ursula and her eleven thousand Virgins" which made the glory of our sitting room in Great Russell Street'.(G.B.-J, 1904)

The embroideress of this cartoon, Frances Horner (1858-1940), was a daughter of William Graham, MP, a wealthy Glaswegian India Merchant and Burne-Jones's first important patron. She first met Burne-Jones in the mid 1870s when she was about eighteen. The friendship lasted until his dvatb, interrupted only for a couple of years following her marriage to the barrister John Fortescue Horner in 1883. As she detected on meeting Burne-Jones 'he was not very happy , . (Horner, 1933) Responding to his melancholy, she became one of the many young female confidants of his later years. She wrote that her 'whole nature and feeling 'were coloured by his friendship (Horner, 1933). He in turn gave of his best to her in letters and designs. He wrote to Ruskin of his grief on her marriage: 'Many a patient design went to adorning Frances and her ways, sirens for her girdle, Heavens and Paradises for her Prayer 'books, Virtues and Vices for her necklace boxes — ah! the folly of me from the beginning — and now in the classic words of Mr Swiveller "she has gone and married the gardener". Well I can't remember a tithe of the folly there.' (Fiztgerald, 1973) The present cartoon is the most substantial of these gifts of friendship and the conception must owe much to Burne-Jones's love for Frances, then unclouded by her marriage.

Burne Jones had begun to design for embroidery as early as 1863 when he produced a series based on Chaucer's Legendof Good Women for Ruskin. The 1870s saw the height of his interest partly promoted by Frances's skill with the needle. They 'worked closely together experimenting with the medium, he drawing on the cloth and she embroidering over his works. In this way she became able to execute exactly what he demanded, producing some lovely fabric pictures. Most notable is L'amor che mouve (Mells Church) which is an immense piece of work.'(Harrison and Waters, 1973) The present work and the version at the Victoria and Albert Museum reveal that in the case of 'L'Amor che muove il sole e l'altri stelle', Burne-Jones worked in a more conventional way, supplying Frances with monochromatic and coloured cartoons.

Bibliography

Burne-Jones, G. Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones. Volume 1. London: Macmillan, 1904.

Fitzgerald, Penelope. Edward Burne-Jones, A Biography. London: Michael Joseph, 1975.

Harrison, Martin and Waters, Bill. Burne-Jones.London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1973.

Horner, Frances. Time Remembered. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1933.

Morgan, Hilary and Nahum, Peter. Burne-Jones, The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Century. London: Peter Nahum, 1989. Catalogue number 66.

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Last modified 2 January 2002