Watercolour, 1873Oil painting, 1894, now displayed at Wightwick Manor
Love Among the Ruins is a painting by English artist Edward Burne-Jones which exists in two versions, a watercolour completed in 1873 (damaged in 1893 and restored in 1898) and an oil painting completed in 1894. It depicts a man and a woman amid ruined architecture. The work is a synthesis of influences from the Pre-Raphaelite, Symbolist and Aesthetic art movements. The ambiguous scene without a clear narrative is considered one of Burne-Jones' best works.
The work depicts two lovers in blue robes, a man and a woman, seated together on a stone capital amid the ruins of buildings. A broken column is at their feet, covered with briar rose, perhaps an allusion to Burne-Jones' Briar Rose series. In the background is a door with a frieze of putti, and arches leading into the distance. The setting may be influenced by the ruins of Polyandrion from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.
When sold at Christie's in 2013, the lot essay identified the models as the Italians Alessandro di Marco and Antonia Caiva. Others have suggested that they may be Maria Zambaco and Gaetano Meo. The model in the second version may be Bessie Keeane. Whoever the models are, the male and female figures are taken to allude to Burne-Jones himself and his lover Maria Zambaco.
Watercolour
The watercolour was painted on paper from 1870 to 1873 at the studio of John Roddam Spencer Stanhope at Little Campden House, on Campden Hill in Kensington. It was made from watercolour mixed with gouache and gum arabic, giving it a finished appearance resembling an oil painting. It measures 96.5 cm × 152.4 cm (38.0 in × 60.0 in) (37.9″ x 60 ″) and is signed with the initials "EBJ" to the lower left, and signed "Edward Burne Jones" on the backboard. The backboard bears the typed inscription "This Picture, being painted in WATER/COLOUR, would be injured by the slight-/est moisture./Great care must be used whenever/it is removed from the Frame".
The completed full-size watercolour was first exhibited at the Dudley Gallery at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly in 1873, alongside another watercolour, The Garden of the Hesperides (now in the Kunsthalle Hamburg). It was one of few works that Burne-Jones exhibited after he withdrew in high dudgeon from the Old Watercolour Society in 1870, over the negative reception of his watercolour of Phyllis and Demophoön (which included a full-frontal naked male figure and a portrait of his mistress Maria Zambaco), and before he started to exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery when it opened in 1877. It was an immediate critical and popular success. Burne-Jones himself rated it very highly, and it was praised by George du Maurier as "very stunning - almost the best thing he's done". Writing later, Julia Cartwright has said it was "one of the master's most perfect and beautiful creations", and Malcolm Bell called it "the most impressive of the painter's works, with its vague hint of an untold tragedy that haunts the memory".
The watercolour was thought to be damaged beyond repair, and remained in Burne-Jones' studio for 5 years, turned against the wall. At the suggestion of the owner and his former assistant Charles Fairfax Murray, Burne-Jones was eventually persuaded in 1898 to attempt a restoration, using ox gall to remove the egg white and then repainting the damaged head of the woman. The restoration was completed in May 1898, just a few weeks before his death in June 1898.
The work was sold at Christie's in London in March 1908 for 1,575 guineas. Acquired by the art dealer Agnew's, it passed through several collections before being sold at Sotheby's in London in May 1958 for 480 guineas, and it was acquired by Agnew's again. The original watercolour was auctioned again at Christie's in London in July 2013. Estimated at £3m to £5m, it sold for £14.8m, then the highest sale price for a Pre-Raphaelite work.
Oil painting
Distraught that his treasured watercolour was irretrievably damaged in Paris in 1893, Burne-Jones immediately painted a second version in oils, which was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1894. The oil painting measures 95.3 cm × 160 cm (37.5 in × 63.0 in). It is signed and dated, bottom right: "EBJ 1894". A hand-written note by Burne-Jones on the back of the painting reads: "This oil painting of ‘Love Among the Ruins’ is the same design as the one of the same name which I painted in watercolours, twenty one years ago, but which was destroyed in August last year. The present picture I began at once, and have made it as like as possible to the other, and have finished it this day. APRIL 23. 1894.Edward Burne Jones."