THE WIZARD (unfinished) † NCM 1900-672 This work was begun around 1896, but remained unfinished upon the death of the artist in 1898.
In this work, a wizard holds back a curtain for a young woman and reveals a shipwreck within a magical mirror, perhaps referencing Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ with the characters Prospero and Miranda. The broken mast of the ship indicates that disaster has overwhelmed those on board, perhaps known to or loved by the girl. The figures are richly adorned, and the colour palette in the original painting is subdued. The wizard, modelled on a younger Burne-Jones, turns the pages of an ancient book with his right hand whilst holding the curtain open with his left. A cauldron bubbles on the tripod next to the woman, modelled by Frances Graham Horner, the daughter of his primary patron, William Graham.
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