0
Supporting museums Art we've helped buy Perseus and the Graiae

Perseus and the Graiae

Sir Edward Burne-Jones

Art Funded
2008
Dimensions
152.4 x 168.7 cm
Art Fund grant
£25,000 (Total: £60,000; Tax remission)
Vendor
Trustees of the 1st Earl of Balfour's Trust (through Christie's)
Burne-Jones's retelling of the Perseus legend concentrated on its most familiar episodes.

Perseus is visiting the Graiae, three sisters of the gorgon, to force them to help him find and kill Medusa. This relief is a key element in the artist's uncompleted 'Perseus' cycle. The other oils, unfinished canvases and cartoons from the series are in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart.

Provenance

Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848-1930); by descent to the Trustees of the 1st Earl of Balfour's Trust.

Oil, bronze & silver leaf on carved gesso on an oak panel overpainted in gold

Share this article


National Museum Cardiff

Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP
029 2039 7951
Website

Opening times

Tues – Sun & most Bank Holiday Mondays
10am – 5pm (Galleries close 4.45pm)

Closed 24 – 26 Dec, 1 Jan

Art we’ve helped buy at National Museum Cardiff

John Ingle Lee, Sandbanks On The Mawddach, Barmouth
 Acquired 2016
Group of works by John Piper
 Acquired 2014
Portrait of a Lady (Miss Mary Jenkins?)
 Acquired
Wine cooler
 Acquired 1991
Winchester Cathedral
 Acquired 1939
William & Mary silver-gilt sideboard dish and ewer
 Acquired 1945
Welsh Landscape with Two Women Knitting
 Acquired 2010
View of the Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore on the Grand Canal, Venice
 Acquired 2010
View of Andernacht on the Rhine
 Acquired 1966
Valley of the Mawddach with Cader Idns
 Acquired 1934
Untitled (History)
 Acquired 2002
Untitled
 Acquired 2001
Two handled cup & cover
 Acquired 2005
Two Greek coins
 Acquired 1955
Turandot
 Acquired 2002
Trees
 Acquired 1992
Toilet Set
 Acquired 1964
Three Bronze Age Torcs
 Acquired 1993
Thirty-six plates and dishes
 Acquired 1992
The Wynnstay Organ
 Acquired 1995
The Williams Centrepiece
 Acquired 1995
The Will to Proceed to the End of the Possible
 Acquired 2015
The Rug Seller, Treboul
 Acquired 2011
The Rise of the Skylark
 Acquired 1991
The Rialto Bridge and Palazzo dei Camerlenghi
 Acquired 2011
The Parc-y-meirch hoard
 Acquired 1940
The Mostyn ewer & basin
 Acquired 1977
The Jones Conversation Piece
 Acquired 1996
The Jenkins Vase
 Acquired 1976
The Japanese Doll
 Acquired 2003
The Hour of Prayer
 Acquired 2008
The Finding of Moses
 Acquired 1989
The Falls of Terni
 Acquired 1969
The Exeter Dessert Service
 Acquired 1998
The Bacino di San Marco, Looking North
 Acquired 1957
The Bachelor's Breakfast Table
 Acquired 1928
The Actor
 Acquired 1999
The Aberystwyth Torc
 Acquired 1966
Tankard
 Acquired 2005
Swansea Supper Service
 Acquired 2015
Swansea Pottery Tea Canister
 Acquired 2015
Swansea looking towards the sea
 Acquired 2010
Sur le Trottoir
 Acquired 2005
Sunset
 Acquired 2005
Storr Rock, Lady's Cove - Le Soir
 Acquired 2004
Still Life with Three Chinese Vases II
 Acquired 2013
Stage design for two Byzantine gentleman for 'Attilla'
 Acquired 1932
Souvenir of Switzerland
 Acquired 1998
Soup tureen & stand
 Acquired 1990
Six Greek coins
 Acquired 1959
Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, 4th Baronet & Charlotte Williams Wynn
 Acquired 2009
Sinker
 Acquired 2008
Silver sugar bowl and cover
 Acquired 1955
Sèvres plate and vase
 Acquired 1990
Regency candelabrum
 Acquired 1990
Red Stripe
 Acquired 2009
Raethro Pink
 Acquired 2008
Punch-bowl
 Acquired 1967
Profile of a Man in a Bowler Hat & A Woman Walking
 Acquired 2005
Portrait of Richard Wilson
 Acquired 1947
Portrait of Elizabeth Harriet Warren (Viscountess Bulkeley) as Hebe
 Acquired 2000
Portrait of a Lady
 Acquired 2005
Portrait group
 Acquired 1961
Portfolio table by Hugh Reveley and William Jones
 Acquired 1997
Porcelain Wall
 Acquired 2006
Perseus and the Graiae
 Acquired 2008
Pembroke Town and Castle
 Acquired 1930
Park Village East - Winter
 Acquired 2000
Pair of sauceboats
 Acquired 2007
Nymph Kissing Cupid
 Acquired 1997
Nine pieces of Swansea and Nantgarw porcelain
 Acquired 1992
Nature Morte au Poron
 Acquired 2009
Mountain Landscape - Cwm Trifaen
 Acquired 2014
Meeting of the Fools
 Acquired 2001
Maiolica dish
 Acquired 2005
Madonna and Child with Saints Francis, Lucy and attendant Angels
 Acquired 1969
Llandberis Church
 Acquired 1929
Liverpool Dock
 Acquired 2015
Larkspurs
 Acquired 1972
Landscape with St Philip Baptising the Eunuch
 Acquired 1984
Landscape with Arched Gateway
 Acquired 2002
Landscape
 Acquired 1936
La Falaise à Penarth, Le Soir Marée Basse
 Acquired 1993
Kilgerran Castle
 Acquired 1953
Kangchenjunga from Darjeeling
 Acquired 2006
Kamikaze
 Acquired 2006
Iron forge between Dolgelly and Barmouth & Rhaeadr-y-Wennol near LLanrwst
 Acquired 1936
Homura I (Inferno)
 Acquired 2011
Hilly Landscape with Classical Figures
 Acquired 1961
Henry Knight of Tythegston with his three children
 Acquired 1999
Heavenly Welcome: A Model for a Memorial to Mary Ellen Peel and her son Archibald
 Acquired 2009
Head
 Acquired 2001
Hanako, Type A
 Acquired 2007
Hall chair
 Acquired 2002
Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness
 Acquired 1971
Gothic-revival ewer
 Acquired 1994
Four Casters
 Acquired 2012
Five works on paper
 Acquired 2006
Figure of a Chinaman
 Acquired 1972
Empirical Jungle
 Acquired 2004
Diptych: The Balcony
 Acquired 2008
Dinas Mawddii
 Acquired 1936
Design for a Villa at Llanaeron
 Acquired 1991
David Jackson Collection of Silver
 Acquired 2000
Dark Entrance
 Acquired 2011
Crazy Gondolier
 Acquired 2009
Collection of silver
 Acquired 1993
Collection of drawings
 Acquired 1946
Collection of 9 etchings and engravings
 Acquired 1929
Christening Bowl
 Acquired 1937
Charlotte Grenville, wife of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn and her children
 Acquired 1998
Canigou in Snow
 Acquired 1935
Candlestick
 Acquired 2010
Bust of Napoleon I
 Acquired 1992
Bust of Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury
 Acquired 1991
Bust of a Man
 Acquired 1993
Burton Hoard
 Acquired 2005
Blaenau Ffestiniog Circle
 Acquired 2012
Bergere Assise
 Acquired 1992
Beach Girl
 Acquired 2005
Aurora
 Acquired 1993
Arcadian Landscape
 Acquired 1992
An Archery Meeting at Gwersyllt Park, Denbighshire
 Acquired 1943
Alfred Gilbert Works of Art
 Acquired 1936
A Welsh Landscape
 Acquired 1929
A Street in Tours & Man with a Bagpipe
 Acquired 1934
A Grand View of Snowdon
 Acquired 2001
A Cottage in a Cornfield
 Acquired 1978
A Calm
 Acquired 1993
8 Drawings
 Acquired 2001
6 pieces of porcelain
 Acquired Not in Review
35 small drawings of Welsh scenery
 Acquired 1942
1) Rhyl Sands; 2) Une Trouvaille a Pompei
 Acquired 2006
1) Optical Bowl with Fractured Rim; 2) Counterpoint Vase in Twelve Tones
 Acquired 2011
1) North view of Margam House, Glamorgan; 2) South view of Margam House, Glamorgan
 Acquired 2012
1) Landscape with a Ruined Church; 2) Landscape composition
 Acquired 2005
1) Cattle Beneath Trees; 2) Cattle on Bridge over Stream and Cottage in Trees; 3) Untitled (cottage)
 Acquired 2005
1) Blown-away Vase, Over the Edge, Firework XII, 2008; 2) Vase: Water of Greenness, 2008
 Acquired 2009

Nineteen of Nicolas Poussin's paintings take Moses as their subject. The Finding of Moses from 1651 is distinguished not only by the animated detail of the foreground scene, but also by the accuracy of the archaeological background.

A late still life, Picasso's Nature Morte aux Poron reworks the classic genre as an exercise in Cubist angularity. While the palette reflects the artist's post-war shift away from darker colours in favour of brighter, lighter shades, the objects themselves are long-established symbols in the artist's artistic vocabulary.

Read more
Read less


Exhibitions at National Museum Cardiff

Trevor Paglen, They Watch the Moon, 2010

Artes Mundi 8

  • National Museum Cardiff
  • Until 24 February 2019
Last Chance
US actress Marilyn Monroe on the Nevada desert going over her lines for a difficult scene she is about to play with Clarke Gable in the film The Misfits by John Huston, 1960.

Women in Focus: Part One: Women Behind the Lens

  • National Museum Cardiff
  • Until 28 January 2019
Nia, The Gurnos, Merthyr

Women in Focus: Part Two: Women in Front of the Lens

  • National Museum Cardiff
  • Until 9 June 2019

Image credit

1 . Perseus and the Graiae

© National Museum Cardiff

Back to top