The Merciful Knight

The Merciful Knight is a watercolour with bodycolour on paper completed in 1863 by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, measuring about 101 by 59 centimetres and held today at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. It depicts an eleventh century Italian legend about the Florentine knight John Gualbert, who forgave the man who had killed his brother when the murderer begged for mercy in the name of the crucified Christ; upon Gualbert's later visit to a church, the figure on the crucifix bowed its head to him in recognition of his mercy. The subject was drawn from a retelling of the legend in Sir Kenelm Digby's Broadstone of Honour, and Burne-Jones considered the painting his favorite among his early works. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/