The Star of Bethlehem by Edward Burne-Jones
The Star of Bethlehem is a painting in watercolour by Sir Edward Burne-Jones depicting the Adoration of the Magi with an angel holding the star of Bethlehem. At 101 + 1⁄ 8 by 152 inches (2,570 mm × 3,860 mm), The Star of Bethlehem was the largest watercolour of the 19th century. It was completed in 1890 and was first exhibited in 1891.
Painting Specifications
| Artist | Edward Burne-Jones |
| Year | c.1885–1890 |
| Dimensions | 260 cm × 390 cm (101 in × 152 in) |
| Location | Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery |
It was commissioned by the Corporation of the City of Birmingham for its new Museum and Art Gallery in 1887, two years after Burne-Jones was elected Honorary President of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. The Birmingham commission gave Burne-Jones an opportunity to revisit his tapestry design as a full-scale painting. It was completed in 1890 and exhibited at the New Gallery, London, in the spring of 1891 before being sent on to the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, where it remains.
Origins and Tapestry Design
In 1886, John Prideaux Lightfoot had approached William Morris and Burne-Jones to create a tapestry as a gift for their alma mater Exeter College, Oxford, suggesting the Adoration of the Magi as a subject. Burne-Jones completed a 26 × 38 inch modello or design in watercolour and bodycolour heightened with gold in 1887. Morris and his assistant John Henry Dearle based the cartoons for the tapestry weavers on Burne-Jones's watercolour, changing the colour scheme and adding background details including the flowering plants characteristic of Dearle's tapestry work.
The Adoration of the Magi tapestry was woven by Morris & Co. at Merton Abbey and displayed in their London showrooms at Easter 1890 before being presented to Exeter College. The Adoration was ultimately the most commercially successful of all Morris & Co. tapestries. Of the ten versions woven, the following locations are recorded:
- The original hangs in the Exeter College Chapel.
- One is in Eton College Chapel.
- One version is in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
- One in the Art Gallery of South Australia.
- One is at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Composition and Creative Process
The colour palette with its rich blue-greens differs greatly from both the original watercolour modello and the Morris tapestry. Its large size allowed the artist to add a wealth of fine detail not possible in the tapestry version, especially in the clothing. To complete the work, Burne-Jones worked on a ladder, and wrote "a tiring thing it is physically to do, up my steps and down..." A photograph by Barbara Leighton Sotheby, preserved as a platinum print by Frederick Hollyer, shows Burne-Jones on his ladder in front of the work-in-progress.
Burne-Jones also used a different pose of the angel holding the star to illustrate the wildflower called Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) in The Flower Book, a collection of watercolours on themes inspired by the names of flowers that he completed between 1882 and 1898.