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Your galleryThe Love Song
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Follow the line from the listener to the organist’s hands and then to Cupid at the right. Notice how the three figures participate in the same music differently.
A woman plays an organ while an armored listener sits nearby and Cupid works its bellows. Burne-Jones developed the painting between 1868 and 1877, drawing inspiration from a song about love. Music connects the figures without requiring a single, explicit narrative: their poses, the flowers, and the evening setting suggest relationships that remain unspoken.
Oil on canvas · 45 x 61 3/8 in. (114.3 x 155.9 cm · The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Symbolism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Love Song
- Artist
- Sir Edward Burne-Jones (British, Birmingham 1833–1898 Fulham)
- Date
- 1868–77
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 45 x 61 3/8 in. (114.3 x 155.9 cm)
- Credit line
- The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment Fund, 1947
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.