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.