The Beguiling of Merlin

Infobox Painting

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title= The Beguiling of Merlin
artist= Edward Burne-Jones
year= 1872-1877
type=Oil on canvas
height= 186
width= 111
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city= Port Sunlight, Merseyside
museum= Lady Lever Art Gallery

"The Beguiling of Merlin" is a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones which was created between 1872 and 1877.

The painting depicts a scene from Arthurian legend, the infatuation of Merlin with the Lady of the Lake, Nimue. Merlin is shown trapped, helpless in a hawthorn bush as Nimue reads from a book of spells.

The work was commissioned from Burne-Jones by Frederick Richards Leyland, a Liverpool ship-owner and art-collector, [ [http://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/biog/Leyl_FR.htm Frederick Richards Leyland, 1832-1892] at the Center for Whistler Studies.] in the late 1860s. After a false start blamed on "poor materials" Burne-Jones began work on the painting proper in 1873, finishing the body of the work by the end of 1874; although the painting was not first exhibited until 1877 at the opening exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in London.

Burne-Jones used Maria Zambaco, who was probably his mistress from 1866 to 1872, for the model for the head of Nimue.

The painting was purchased by Lord Leverhulme in 1918 and remains in the Lady Lever Art Gallery to the present day. [http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=7&id=105 Artwork of the Month - January, 2003 - "The Beguiling of Merlin", by Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833 - 1898)] at Liverpoolmuseums.org.uk.]

The painting features on the cover of the novel by A. S. Byatt.

References