Danaë (The Tower of Brass)

Danaë (The Tower of Brass), painted in 1887, depicts the Ovidian myth of the Argive princess imprisoned by her father Acrisius in a bronze tower to prevent the fulfillment of an oracle predicting his death at his grandson's hands. Zeus, captivated by Danaë's beauty, reached her as a shower of gold, and their union produced Perseus. Burne-Jones was drawn to this myth for its imagery of divine desire overcoming human constraint—themes that resonated with his broader interest in the relationship between beauty, love, and fate. This work forms part of his larger Perseus cycle, one of the most ambitious narrative series of his career. Glasgow Museums Resource Centre preserves the panel, which dates from his mature phase when his mythological works achieved their most complex symbolic layering. The image of the imprisoned woman awaiting transformation carries characteristically Burne-Jonesian ambivalences about agency, beauty, and the overwhelming force of the divine.

Painted on panel in oil, the work benefits from the hard, smooth support that allows for the precise linear detail Burne-Jones favored in his most highly finished works. The architectural setting—tower walls, grille, or confined space—would be rendered with careful spatial control to evoke imprisonment.