LOVE AMONGST THE RUINS (1894) † NCM 1900-646 The briar rose present in this work alludes to Burne-Jones’s Briar Rose series, whilst the thorny vine also symbolises the hardship and pain that love can bring.
A good example of the Aesthetic movement because of its lack of a clear narrative, this work is based loosely on a poem by Robert Browning (1812-1889) of the same title, but refers more to the artist’s own doomed romance with his model and muse. The original watercolour painting of this work became the most expensive PreRaphaelite painting ever sold at auction at Christie’s, London in 2013. The figures appear mournful and lost amid ruined architecture, but they have each other in the fallen city. The ruins in the depiction and the reference in the title may refer to the demise of his affair with Maria Zambaco, some twenty years earlier. After the affair waned, Zambaco proposed a suicide pact, and then threatened to kill herself by opium overdose or by drowning herself. This was a disastrous time for Burne-Jones as news of the scandal had spread in the literary circle. His wife Georgiana only became aware of the affair after finding a letter in her husband’s pocket.
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