The Merciful Knight

Painting by Edward Burne-Jones

The Merciful Knight

Artist| Edward Burne-Jones
Year| 1863
Type| watercolour with bodycolour on paper
Dimensions| 101.4 cm × 58.6 cm (39.9 in × 23.1 in)
Location| Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Birmingham

The Merciful Knight is a watercolour by the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones which was completed in 1863 and is currently housed at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.[1]

## History[edit]

This picture is based on an 11th-century legend retold by Sir Kenelm Digby in Broadstone of Honour, its hero is a Florentine knight named John Gualbert (an anglicisation of Giovanni Gualberto). The explanatory inscription provided by Burne-Jones tells the viewer of a knight who forgave his enemy when he might have destroyed him and how the image of Christ kissed him in token that his acts had pleased God.[2]

John Gualbert was an Italian Roman Catholic saint, the founder of the Vallumbrosan Order. He was a member of the Visdomini family of Florentine nobility. One Good Friday he was entering Florence accompanied by armed followers, when in a narrow lane he came upon a man who had killed his brother. He was about to kill the man in revenge, when the other fell upon his knees with arms outstretched in the form of a cross and begged for mercy in the name of Christ, who had been crucified on that day. John forgave him. He entered the Benedictine Church at San Miniato to pray, and the figure on the crucifix bowed its head to him in recognition of his generosity. John Gualbert was later canonised.

This arguably being Burne-Jones's most important early work,[3] it demonstrates a new and more personal style, evident in its design, technique and expression. It remained Burne-Jones's own favourite among his early works: this interest in knights and chivalry was aroused when painting the Arthurian Oxford Union murals in 1863 and was to remain with him throughout his life. In 1894 he tried to borrow The Merciful Knight to make a large oil version, and he was actually working on The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon when he died in 1898.[4]

In Burne-Jones preliminary sketches for The Merciful Knight, the kiss given by Christ is far more passionate, with strong homoerotic overtones. In this finished version, painted in gouache, the kiss became protective and deeply caring, without any sexual implications.[5] The beard of Christ provides a shield over the knight's forehead and inexpressibly sad face; the wounds in Christ's hands draw attention to the vulnerability of the knight's exposed hands – whose armoured gauntlets hang from his waist. Incidentally, the marigolds in the foreground came from the 'town garden' in Russell Square, close to Burne-Jones' house opposite the British Museum.[6]

## See also[edit]

* List of paintings by Edward Burne-Jones
* John Gualbert
* Arthurian legend

## Notes[edit]

1. ^ See the BM&AG webpages on this work [1].
2. ^ A.J. Frantzen, Chivalry, Sacrifice & The Great War: The Medieval Contexts of Edward Burne-Jones "The Miracle of the Merciful Knight" (from 'Speaking Images. Essays in Honor of V.A. Kolve'). Pegasus Press (2001), pp. 618–625.
3. ^ In the memorial biography of her husband, Georgiana Burne-Jones stated that it seemed: 'to sum up and seal the ten years that had passed since Edward first went to Oxford'. Cf. information at BM&AG website [2]
4. ^ The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon is owned by the Ponce Museum of Art in Puerto Rico. However, it was shown for a short time at the Tate Britain in London while the Ponce Museum underwent restoration in 2009–2010. The painting was also on view at the Prado Museum in Madrid: The Sleeping Beauty. Victorian Painting from The Museo de Arte de Ponce (24 February 2009 – 31 May 2009). Cf. Wiki entry
5. ^ F. MacCarthy, The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination, Faber and Faber (2011). See also entry for this painting, on C. Wood, Burne-Jones, Phoenix Illustrated (1997).
6. ^ See BM&AG note [3] and their paper at [4]

St John Gualbert. -Fresco by Neri di Bicci, Santa Trinita in Florence

## References[edit]

* Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery (Learning Department), The Pre-Raphaelites (2010).Accessed 29 January 2012
* Frantzen, A.J., Chivalry, Sacrifice & The Great War: The Medieval Contexts of Edward Burne-Jones "The Miracle of the Merciful Knight" (from 'Speaking Images. Essays in Honor of V.A. Kolve'), Pegasus Press, The University of North Carolina at Asheville (2001).
* MacCarthy, F., The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination, Faber and Faber (2011).
* Peterson, R. T., Sir Kenelm Digby,
* Wildman, S., Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian artist-dreamer, Yale University Press (1998).
* Wood, C., Burne-Jones, Phoenix Illustrated (1997).

## External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Burne-Jones, Sir Edward Burne".

* The Mercyful Knight at BM&AG
* Photogravure of The Merciful Knight at BM&AG
* BM&AG website
* Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource Over 2,000 Pre-Raphaelite images
* BM&AG collection online
* Works by Kenelm Digby at Project Gutenberg

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Edward Burne-Jones

List of paintings

Paintings|

* The Merciful Knight (1863)
* Love Among the Ruins (1873)
* The Beguiling of Merlin (1872–1877)
* Pygmalion and the Image series (1875–1878)
* The Wheel of Fortune (1875–1883)
* The Golden Stairs (1876–1880)
* The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon (1881–1898)
* The Flower Book (1882–1898)
* The Mill (1882)
* King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (1884)
* The Legend of Briar Rose (1885–1890)
* The Garden of Pan (1886)
* The Nativity (1887)
* Star of Bethlehem (1890)
* Sponsa de Libano (1891)
* Hope (1896)

Murals|

* Oxford Union murals (1857–1859) (co-artist)

Tapestries|

* Adoration of the Magi (1890)
* Holy Grail tapestries (1891–1894)

Related|

* Georgiana Burne-Jones (wife)
* Philip Burne-Jones (son)
* Angela Thirkell (granddaughter)
* Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
* Morris & Co.
* Tristram and Isoude stained glass panels
* Great Bookcase
* Maria Zambaco (model)

* v
* t
* e

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (paintings)

* William Holman Hunt
* John Everett Millais
* Dante Gabriel Rossetti
* James Collinson
* William Michael Rossetti
* Frederic George Stephens
* Thomas Woolner

Associated
artists and
figures

* Lawrence Alma-Tadema
* George Price Boyce
* John Brett
* Ford Madox Brown
* Lucy Madox Brown
* Richard Burchett
* Edward Burne-Jones
* Georgiana Burne-Jones
* James Campbell
* John Collier
* Charles Allston Collins
* Frank Cadogan Cowper
* Evelyn De Morgan
* Walter Deverell
* Henry Treffry Dunn
* William Dyce
* Henry Holiday
* Arthur Hughes
* Edward Robert Hughes
* Frederic Leighton
* Robert Braithwaite Martineau
* Louisa Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford
* William Morris
* Alexander Munro
* Joseph Noel Paton
* Valentine Cameron Prinsep
* Christina Rossetti
* John Ruskin
* Emma Sandys
* Frederick Sandys
* Thomas Seddon
* Elizabeth Siddal
* James Smetham
* Rebecca Solomon
* Simeon Solomon
* John Roddam Spencer Stanhope
* Marie Spartali Stillman
* John Melhuish Strudwick
* Algernon Charles Swinburne
* Henry Wallis
* John William Waterhouse
* William James Webbe
* William Lindsay Windus

Some
well-known
works
(period and
post-period)

* Ophelia
* Christ in the House of His Parents
* A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids
* Ecce Ancilla Domini
* Mariana
* The Light of the World
* Our English Coasts ('Strayed Sheep')
* The Scapegoat
* Paolo and Francesca da Rimini
* The Last of England
* Work
* The Awakening Conscience
* The Hireling Shepherd
* April Love
* Found
* Autumn Leaves
* Bocca Baciata
* Oxford Union murals
* Lady Lilith
* Roman Widow
* Mary Magdalene
* The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple
* Morgan le Fay
* Beata Beatrix
* The Shadow of Death
* Proserpine
* A Vision of Fiammetta
* Pygmalion and the Image series
* The Beloved
* Cymon and Iphigenia
* King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
* The Day Dream
* The Golden Stairs
* Dante and Beatrice
* Love's Messenger
* The Magic Circle
* The Legend of Briar Rose
* The Lady of Shalott (Waterhouse)
* The Roses of Heliogabalus
* Lilith
* Eos
* Flaming June
* Hope
* Hylas and the Nymphs
* Lady Godiva
* The Love Potion
* The Lady of Shalott (Hunt)
* I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott

Models|

* Elizabeth Siddal
* Fanny Cornforth
* Effie Gray
* Sophie Gray
* Annie Miller
* Jane Morris
* Marie Spartali Stillman
* Alexa Wilding
* Maria Zambaco
* Dorothy Dene
* Fanny Eaton
* Ruth Herbert

Related|

* The Germ
* Hogarth Club
* Morris & Co.
* Rossetti and His Circle (1922 book)
* Dante's Inferno (1967 film)
* The Love School (1975 series)
* Desperate Romantics (2009 series)
* Effie Gray (2014 film)

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