EDWARD CLIFFORD (BRITISH 1844-1907) AFTER EDWARD... Lot n° 14

MERLIN AND NIMUE with monogram and dated EBJ / 1861 (in a cartouche, lower left) watercolour and bodycolour on paper mounted on the artist's prepared stretcher 65 x 52.5cm; 25 1/2 x 20 1/2in 109 x 89cm; 43 x 35in (framed) Property from a Private Collection, Cumbria Provenance Sale, Sotheby's, London, 6 November 1995, lot 210 Mr Carl Laszlo, Basel Sale, Sotheby's, London, 13 July 2017, lot 16 (purchased by the present owner) Literature William Waters, Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonne, online edition (catalogued as After Edward Coley Burne-Jones, By Edward Charles Clifford) Edward Clifford painted several faithful copies of Burne-Jones' works from the 1860s including the present watercolour of Merlin and Nimué which Burne-Jones had completed in 1861 (Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London). Clifford summed up his admiration for Burne-Jones' original in glowing terms: 'Well, to return to the five pictures of 1864 [sic]. The largest was Merlin and Nimué, quite a different design from the picture which was exhibited some years later in the Grosvenor Gallery, and which is known by the etching of it and by Mr Hollyer's photographs... I was greatly impressed by this picture when I was only a student, but when I saw it three or four years ago in the collections of Mr Leathart of Gateshead-on-Tyne, I found it so beautiful that I almost lost command of myself for a few moments. The subject and the fine dramatic treatment of it are interesting, the greatest virtue of the picture lies in its ineffable and overwhelmingly lovely colour.' (quoted in Broadlands as it was by Edward Clifford, London, 1890 pp. 52-54). Clifford was not alone in his idolization of the work of Burne-Jones, but one of a group of admirers led by Robert Batemen (1842-1922). Waters notes that Clifford seems to have had access to Burne-Jones's studio, but that there is no suggestion in Clifford's biography or his writings that he was actually an assistant there, commenting that if he was an assistant along side Thomas Matthews Rooke and Charles Fairfax Murray, then it has yet to come to light. (William Waters, Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonne, online edition). Born in St John's Wood, the son of an artists' materials supplier, Clifford taught painting at the Berry F. Berry Art School in Swiss Cottage. He showed his work in London at the Royal Society of British Artists, The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, The Royal Academy, and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. Further afield his work was exhibited at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.