Musical Angel
Oldham Gallery, 1894.
Paris International Exhibition, The Royal Pavilion, Paris, 1900, no. 15, as Angel of the Martyrs.
The Pre-Raphaelites: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Their Associates, John Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN, February 16-March 22, 1964; Gallery of Modern Art, New York, April 27-May 31, 1964, no. 23, as A Musical Angel.
Search for Innocence: Primitive and Primitivistic Art of the 19th Century, Department of Art, University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, MD, October 29-December 10, 1975, no. 44, as A Musical Angel.
Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23-August 18, 1996; The Cummer Museum and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20-November 29, 1996; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996-March 2, 1997, hors cat.
Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 12-September 6, 1998, no cat.
This painting is a study for a stained-glass window in Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, England. Here, an angel is depicted holding a violin and palms signifying martyrdom. It formed the right side of a triptych (a three-part work of art) showing the patron saint of music, Saint Cecilia, playing an organ.
Painter and designer Edward Burne-Jones was a key figure within the English Arts and Crafts movement. This picture highlights his penchant for flattening form into two-dimensional patterns. This decorative approach foreshadows the later Art Nouveau style.
Sir William Agnew, 1st Baronet (1825-1910), London, by 1900-1910;
By descent to his son, Phillip Leslie Agnew (1863-1938), Littlecourt, Farthingstone, Northamptonshire, England, 1910-1938;
Inherited by his wife, Alexandra Georgette Agnew (née Christian, 1865-1957), Littlecourt, Farthingstone, Northamptonshire, England, 1938-December 4, 1957;
Purchased at her posthumous sale, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Drawings and Paintings, Sotheby and Co., London, December 4, 1957, lot 98, by P. and D. Colnaghi, London, 1957-1959;
Purchased from Colnaghi, through the generosity of Milton and Barbara McGreevy, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1959.
Catalogue of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Drawings and Paintings (London: Sotheby and Co., December 4, 1957), 21, as A Musician Angel.
“Recent Acquisitions by gift and purchase,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 2, no. 3 (January 1960): 9, (repro.), as A Musical Angel.
Music Calendar of the Kansas City Conservatory of Music (1964): (repro.).
The Pre-Raphaelites: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Their Associates, exh. cat. (Indianapolis, IN: John Herron Museum of Art, 1964), unpaginated, (repro.), as A Musical Angel.
Algernon Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813-1912, vol. 1, A to G (New York: Burt Franklin, [1965]), 127, as Angel of the Martyrs.
John Maxon, ed., Museum Studies, vol. 5 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1970), 79, as A Musical Angel.
Martin Harrison and Bill Waters, Burne-Jones (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1973), 193.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 156, (repro.), as A Musical Angel.
Melinda Curtis, Search for Innocence: Primitive and Primitivistic Art of the 19th Century, exh. cat. (College Park, MD: Department of Art, University of Maryland Art Gallery, 1975), 120-22, (repro.), as A Musical Angel.
Albert Charles Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle: A Catalogue (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975), 146, as Angel with Palm and Violin.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 206, (repro.), as Musical Angel.
Debra N. Mancoff, Burne-Jones (San Francisco: Pomegranate, 1998), 93, (repro.), as Musical Angels.
Stephen Wildman and John Christian, Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 238, (repro.), as A Musical Angel.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 119, (repro.), as Musical Angel.
