''King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid'' is an 1884 painting by the

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, Jam ...

artist

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

. The painting illustrates the story of '

The King and the Beggar-maid "The King and the Beggar-maid" is a 16th-century broadside balladThelma G. James (1933), "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads of Francis J. Child", ''The Journal of American Folklore'', Vol. 46 (No. 179), pp. 51–68. that tells the story o ...

", which tells the legend of the prince Cophetua who fell in

love at first sight Love at first sight is a personal experience as well as a common trope in literature: a person or character feels an instant, extreme, and ultimately long-lasting romantic attraction for a stranger upon first seeing that stranger. Described by p ...

with the beggar Penelophon. The tale was familiar to Burne-Jones through an

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or '' ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

published in Bishop Thomas Percy's 1765 ''

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry The ''Reliques of Ancient English Poetry'' (sometimes known as ''Reliques of Ancient Poetry'' or simply Percy's ''Reliques'') is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Bishop Thomas Percy and published in 1765. Sources The basis ...

'' and the sixteen-line poem ''The Beggar Maid'' by

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

.Wildman (1998), pp. 252–254Wood (1997), pp. 100–102 Burne-Jones first attempted the story in an oil painting of 1861–62 (now in the Tate Gallery, London). He was working out a new composition around 1874 or 1875, and began the painting in earnest in 1881. He worked on it through the winter of 1883–84, declaring it finished in April 1884. The composition is influenced by

Andrea Mantegna Andrea Mantegna (, , ; September 13, 1506) was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g. by lowering the horizon in orde ...

's ''Madonna della Vittoria'' (1496–96). Several studies for the final work survive. A small

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

(bodycolour) of c. 1883 (now in the collection of

Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948), is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musical ...

) shows the king and the beggar maid much closer together, and a full-scale

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of imag ...

in bodycolour and coloured chalks of the same year (now in the

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...

) features an entirely different approach to lighting the figures. ''King Cophetua'' was exhibited at the

Grosvenor Gallery The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provide ...

in 1884 and became Burne-Jones's greatest success of the 1880s for its technical execution and its themes of power and wealth overborne by beauty and simplicity. It was heralded as the "picture of the year" by ''

The Art Journal ''The Art Journal'' was the most important British 19th-century magazine on art. It was founded in 1839 by Hodgson & Graves, print publishers, 6 Pall Mall, with the title ''Art Union Monthly Journal'' (or ''The Art Union''), the first issue of 7 ...

'' and "not only the finest work Mr Burne-Jones has ever painted, but one of the finest pictures ever painted by an Englishman" by ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

''. The painting was exhibited in France in 1889, where its popularity earned Burne-Jones the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleo ...

and began a vogue for his work. The artist's wife Georgiana Burne-Jones felt "this picture contained more of Edward's own qualities than any other he did."Quoted in Wildman (1998), p. 255 The painting was purchased by the

Earl of Wharncliffe Earl of Wharncliffe, in the West Riding of the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. History The earldom was created in 1876 for Edward Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, 3rd Baron Wharncliffe. He was a descendan ...

(d. 1899) and acquired by public subscription through the Burne-Jones Memorial Fund from his executors in 1900. It is now in

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

. The full-scale cartoon was acquired for Birmingham in 1947. The painting is referenced in Chapter 4 of Anthony Powell's "Books do Furnish a Room", the tenth instalment of "A Dance to the Music of Time", as a visual set-up for the confrontation between X Trapnel and Kenneth Widmerpool in the former's digs in bombed out Little Venice circa 1947. Pamela Widmerpool is envisioned as the Beggar Maid. The painting is also mentioned in the story "The Beggar Maid" by Alice Munro, where Patrick compares Rose to Beggar Maid, and Rose then looks at the picture only to find out how un-like King Cophetua Patrick would ever be, and how impossible their marriage would be (which turns to be the case). It also merits a mention in A.N. Wilson's novel "Kindly Light."

Studies

File:Edward Burne-Jones King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid 1883.jpg, Sketch in gouache, 1883 (owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber) File:Edward Burne-Jones King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid 1883 cartoon.jpg, Full-size cartoon, 1883 (Birmingham)

Notes

References

* *
full text online from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
* Munro, A. "The Beggar Maid" in "The Beggar Maid. Stories of Flo & Rose" Vintage Books, London 2004 {{Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Paintings by Edward Burne-Jones Collection of the Tate galleries Paintings based on works by Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1884 paintings Poverty in painting