“Sidonia von Bork 1560”
This 1860 watercolor and gouache on paper painting is by the Welsh-English Pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones, and is titled “Sidonia von Bork 1560”.
This aesthetic art piece was inspired by the book Sidonia the Sorceress by Wilhelm Meinhold. It was translated into English and published in 1849 by Jane Francesca Elgee, Oscar Wilde’s mother, and again in 1894 through Burne-Jones’s friend, William Morris and his publishing company.
Burne-Jones had just recently began pursuing art as a career and this is one of his earliest watercolors. Fanny Cornforth who was fellow artist’s Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s muse and mistress, served as the model.
Sidonia von Bork was a Pomeranian (Polish) noblewoman who lived from 1548 to 1620 who was tried and executed for witchcraft. In her later years, after the death of her sister, von Bork moved to a convent for unmarried noblewomen. She soon became involved in a series of political disputes with other roommates of the convent and often appealed to the Duke of Pomerania for assistance.
Von Bork’s last dispute began in 1619 during a Mass where she got into an altercation with a fellow convent roommate, Dorothea von Stettin. Both were arrested and von Stettin accused von Bork of witchcraft. During the trial, the deaths of several dukes were pinned on von Bork.
Simultaneously, another woman was being held for witchcraft and through heavy interrogation, mainly torture, the other supposed witch also named off von Bork as a witch. Von Bork tried to escape and commit suicide after this second accusal of witchcraft. After being held for about a year, von Bork was found guilty of several counts of murder, sexual contacts with the devil, magical practices, and other witchly things. Von Bork was found guilty of 72 counts in all. In 1620, at 72 years old, von Bork was decapitated, and her body burned.
The story of von Bork was written about in several novels in Germany and England. Artists were soon inspired and painted their own renditions of her. Von Bork achieved cult status in Victorian England through the publications of several novels that depicted her more as a femme fatale or sorceress type of character. She was particularly inspirational for the Pre-Raphaelite artists.
“Sidonia von Bork 1560” is currently on display at the Tate Gallery in London, England.
For more on Edward Burne-Jones, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
