3-086-481 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Hope - by the late Sir E. Burne-Jones, 1898. Photograph of an oil painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, a commission for Mrs. George Marston Whitin (Catherine Whitin Lasell) of Whitinsville, Massachusetts. Mrs. Whitin originally requested a painting of a dancing figure, but Burne-Jones, devastated by the recent death of his long-time friend and associate William Morris, struggled with the work and wrote to ask if a painting of Hope would be an acceptable alternative. The result was an allegory in the Renaissance fashion, with the bound personification of Hope reaching skyward despite her bars (and a chain around her ankle). In her hand she holds a sprig of apple blossom that symbolised hope. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.