“Waterhouse’s title is loosely derived from Chaucer’s dream poem, Romaunt of the Rose, itself adapted from the 13th-century French romance: Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris. The narrator embarks on a pilgrimage with the god of love, who leads him to a rose symbolizing perfect love. The poem had been treated by Waterhouse’s early inspiration, Sir Edward-Burne Jones, in preparation for a tapestry. Burne-Jones depicts the rose personified as a young girl in an oil entitled The Heart of the Rose, (1889, Private collection; fig. 1). She embodies the beauty of the sentiment represented, and becomes a love object for the young poet.
Waterhouse’s interpretation is characteristically ambiguous, perhaps linked only in terms of its generic medievalism. His lovely protagonist leans forward to smell a rose. Her half-closed eyes suggest a degree of elective power, as if she hopes that the flower’s scent will body forth some desired secret. Though she may still represent the object of another’s desire, we are also invited to imagine her psychology, and to suppose a hidden narrative of thwarted or aspiring love. She is a participant rather than a passive symbol.”

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John William Waterhouse at Christie’s

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