Study the Figure of the Infant "Cain" or "Abel" for the Mosaics in the American Church in Rome

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt ARA

c. 1885

Black and white chalk on brown paper

10 1/2 x 7 1/4 inches, 26.7 x 19.7 centimetres.

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Commentary by Hilary Morgan

Burne-Jones harboured an ambition to produce large-scale mural art for public buildings: 'I want big things to do and vast spaces, and for common people to see them and say Oh! - only oh!'. His ambition was fulfilled in the mosaics which he designed for St Paul's-within-the-Walls, the American Church in Rome, a project which he began in 1881, and which his assistant T.M. Rooke completed after his death.

The present drawing is for the child standing at Eve's knee in the Chancel Arch Mosaic 'The Tree of Life' (image), which the artist designed in 1885, completing the cartoon in April 1893. The mosaic was unveiled in November 1894. He described the cartoon, a mystic crucifixion, to Frances Horner in 1891: 'a great flowering tree growing all over the space; ... and in the tree a very pale Christ, and on one side of it Adam, and on the other Eve, and two toddlers, and these shall stand for mankind.' Burne-Jones was always reticent about the underlying symbolism of his work, and it is clear that the 'two toddlers' represent Eve's two children Cain and Abel.

References

Burne-Jones, Gergiana. Memorials of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. London: Macmillan, 1904.

Dorment, Richard. 'Burne-Jones's Roman Mosaics'. Burlington Magazine, 899, CXX, February 1978, pp. 72-82.

Horner, Frances. Time Remembered London: Hamish Hamilton, 1933.

Morgan, Hilary, and Peter Nahum. Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Their Century. London: Peter Nahum, 1989. Catalogue number 70.

Waters, Bill. Burne-Jones — A Quest for Love: Works by Sir Edward Burne-Jones Bt and Related Works by Contemporary Artists. London: Peter Nahum, 1993. Catalogue number 21.

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Last modified 2001