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Edward Burne-Jones’s Cinderella: The Magic Cinder
Liana De Girolami Cheney
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2026.05.001
UMASS, Lowell, USA
This article contends that Pre-Raphaelite portrayals of fairy tales should be interpreted as acts of historiographical and psychological reinterpretation rather than mere illustration. By drawing upon narratives already influenced by early modern print culture and socially mediated storytelling, artists like Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris reawakened the suppressed symbolic and affective aspects of the fairy tale, thereby transforming Victorian children’s literature into an intricate visual language that embodies temporality, interiority, and imaginative experience. Edward Burne-Jones’s Cinderella of 1863, a watercolor and gouache on paper, is a painting at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, that embodies the Pre-Raphaelite ideals of beauty, symbolism, and storytelling. Instead of portraying dramatic moments or historical recollections, Burne-Jones focused on a serene, emotionally resonant scene that underscores Cinderella’s patience and inner dignity, along with a recollection of a magical dance with a prince, evoking love. Through graceful lines and contemplative compositions, Burne-Jones transformed the familiar fairy tale into a poetic visual narrative aligned with Victorian artistic ideals. The story of Cinderella was inspired by the classic fairy tale recorded by Giambattista Basile in Pentamerone (Lo cunto de li cunti, 1634-1636) and later adapted by Charles Perrault in Histories or Tales of Past Times (1697), which introduced the well-known elements of the glass slipper and the prince’s search. In 1800s Britain, scholars and writers began translating and exploring early European folklore. Basile’s tales were translated and integrated into 19th-century literary culture. Artists and writers became fascinated by older, darker fairy tales, which influenced the Aesthetic and Pre-Raphaelite movements, particularly in their portrayal of melancholic heroines.
children’s stories, Cinderella, Pre-Raphaelites, symbolism, magic
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