Frieze of Eight Women Gathering Apples
- Artist: Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt
- Date: 1876
- Medium: Oil paint on wood
- Dimensions: support: 737 x 1829 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Frieze of Eight Women Gathering Apples” by Sir Edward Coley Burne‑Jones, created in 1876. The panel, finished in oil on wood, captures a mythic scene from the Garden of the Hesperides: eight young women, the Hesperides, tend golden apple trees that were a wedding gift to Hera. Burne‑Jones, a key figure in the Pre‑Raphaelite circle, infuses the composition with delicate, almost lace‑like drapery and a soft, pastoral palette that echoes early Renaissance panels where such gold relief motifs were common.
The work was likely intended as an overmantel for a fireplace or a decorative panel for a cassone or chest. It was commissioned by the MP and collector William Graham, and later passed into the hands of Lady Horner, who bequeathed it in memory of her father in 1940. The scene’s gentle choreography—women bending, arms raised, apples in hand—conveys a quiet, communal labor that contrasts the mythic grandeur of the orchard. The panel invites viewers to imagine the whispered exchanges between these guardian figures, weaving together beauty, labor, and myth in a single, serene tableau.
See it in person
Frieze of Eight Women Gathering Apples is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
