The Evening Star

The Evening Star appears in multiple formats across Burne-Jones's work — as an independent subject and as a component of larger decorative schemes — reflecting his sustained interest in heavenly bodies personified as languorous female figures. The evening star (the planet Venus as it appears at dusk) had natural associations with beauty, love, and the threshold between day and night that suited Burne-Jones's aesthetic sensibility. This 1870 work on paper belongs to a moment when his reputation was growing rapidly following his Grosvenor Gallery debut of 1877 was still to come, and he was working across multiple media — watercolor, gouache, and oil on both canvas and paper. Works on paper often served as studies for or parallels to canvas compositions, and the paper support gives this work a different surface character from his oil paintings.

On paper, Burne-Jones's characteristic smooth surface handling translates into a medium with its own specific qualities — the paper tooth or preparation affecting how the paint lies. The elongated female figure that embodies the celestial subject is rendered with his usual linear precision. If worked in watercolor or gouache, the palette would tend toward the pale, luminous tones appropriate to twilight — silver, pale gold, cool lavender.