The Legend of the Briar Rose - The Prince Enters the Briar Wood

Sir Edward Burne-Jones

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Between 1874 and 1884 Burne-Jones painted four large panels inspired by Charles Perrault’s La Belle au bois dormant (Tale of the Sleeping Beauty). After they were exhibited to great acclaim at Agnew’s London gallery in 1890, a set of luxurious photogravures was produced at one-third the scale of the originals, using a technique that combines photography and etching. In this introductory scene, the armored hero cuts his way through briars to discover five slumbering knights who failed to break the curse that binds the princess. William Morris, a close friend of the artist’s and a collaborator in Pre-Raphaelitism’s second wave, composed the verse on the painting’s frame: The fateful slumber floats and flows About the tangle of the rose. But lo the fated hand and heart To rend the slumberous curse apart!

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art