The Summons: Study for the Head of Gawaine

Sir Edward Burne-Jones

1893 · Fabricated black crayon on paper · Robert Lehman Collection

Burne-Jones enrolled at Oxford in 1853 only to leave two years later to train under the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriele Rossetti. Burne-Jones was soon recognized as a leading artist in his own right. Toward the end of his career, the Australian mining engineer William Knox d’Arcy commissioned him to design a set of tapestries depicting the legend of the Quest for the Holy Grail. This drawing is a preparatory study for the figure of Gawaine in the tapestry The Summons.

Artist

Sir Edward Burne-Jones

Date

1893

Medium

Fabricated black crayon on paper

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975