Portrait of Sir Edward Burne-Jones

Sir Edward Burne-Jones Painting Reproductions 2 of 5

1833-1898

English Pre-Raphaelite Painter

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (28 August 1833 - 17 June 1898) was an English artist and designer closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and largely responsible for bringing the Pre-Raphaelites into the mainstream of the British art world, while at the same time executing some of the most exquisite and beautiful artwork of the time.

Burne-Jones was born in Birmingham, the son of a frame-maker at Bennetts Hill, where a blue plaque commemorates his birth. His mother died within six days of his being born, and he was raised by his father and an unsympathetic housekeeper. He attended Birmingham's King Edward VI grammar school, and then studied theology at Exeter College, Oxford. At Oxford he became a friend of William Morris as a consequence of a mutual interest in poetry, and was influenced by John Ruskin. At this time he discovered Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur which was to be so influential in his life.

He studied under Rossetti, but developed his own style influenced by his travels in Italy with Ruskin and others. He had intended to become a church minister, but under Morris's influence decided to become an artist and designer instead. After Oxford, from which he did not take a degree, he became closely involved in the rejuvenation of the tradition of stained glass art in England - his stained glass works include the windows of the Philip Webb-designed St Martin's Church in Brampton, Cumbria.

In 1856 Burne-Jones became engaged to Georgiana MacDonald (1840a€“1920), one of the MacDonald sisters. She was training to be a painter, and was the sister of Burne-Jones's old school friend. The couple married in 1860, after which she made her own work in woodcuts and became a close friend of George Eliot. (Another MacDonald sister married the artist Sir Edward Poynter, a further sister married the ironmaster Alfred Baldwin and was the mother of the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and yet another sister was the mother of Rudyard Kipling. Kipling and Baldwin were thus Burne-Jones's nephews).

In 1867 Burne-Jones and his wife settled in Fulham, London. Morris later fell in love with Georgiana, but she rejected him. For much of the 1870s Burne-Jones did not exhibit, following a spate of bitterly hostile attacks in the press, and an affair with his Greek model Maria Zambaco which ended with her trying to commit suicide in public.

In 1877, he was persuaded to show eight oil paintings at the Grosvenor Gallery (a new rival to the Royal Academy). These included The Beguiling of Merlin. The timing was right, and he was taken up as a herald and star of the new Aesthetic Movement.

As well as painting, he also worked in a variety of crafts; including designing ceramic tiles, jewellery, tapestries, book illustration (the Kelmscott Press's Chaucer in 1896), and stage costumes.

In 1880 the Burne-Joneses bought Prospect House in Rottingdean, near Brighton in Sussex, as their holiday home, and soon after the next door Aubrey Cottage to create North End House, reflecting the fact that their Fulham home was in North End Road. (Years later, in 1923, Sir Roderick Jones, head of Reuters, and his wife, playwright and novelist Enid Bagnold, were to add the adjacent Gothic House to the property and which became the inspiration and setting for her play The Chalk Garden).

In 1881 he received an honorary degree from Oxford, and was made an Honorary Fellow in 1883. In 1885 he became the President of the Birmingham Society of Artists. In 1894 he was knighted. Devastated by the death of his friend Morris in 1896, Burne-Jones' health declined substantially until his death on 17 June 1898. Six days later, at the intervention of the Prince of Wales, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey. It was the first time an artist had been so honoured. Burne-Jones was buried in Rottingdean churchyard, near Brighton, a place he knew through summer family holidays. Long out-of-fashion in the art world, due to Modernist art and Abstract Expressionism, it was not until the mid 1970s that his work began to be re-assessed and once again acclaimed.

Burne-Jones exerted a considerable influence on British painting, as detailed in the large exhibition in 1989 at the Barbican Art Gallery, London. Burne-Jones was also highly influential among French symbolist painters, from 1889. His work also inspired poetry by Swinburne - Swinburne's 1886 Poems & Ballads is dedicated to Burne-Jones.

His troubled son Philip (1861a€“1926) became a successful portrait painter. His adored daughter Margaret (1866a€“1953) married John William Mackail (1850a€“1945); friend and biographer of Morris, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1911a€“1916.

Burne-Jones' studio assistant, Charles Fairfax Murray, went on to a successful art career as a painter in his own right. He later became an important collector and respected art dealer. Between 1903 and 1907 he sold a great many works by Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelites to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, at far below their market worth. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery now has the largest collection of works by Burne-Jones in the world, including the massive watercolour Star of Bethlehem, commissioned for the Gallery in 1897. The paintings are believed by some to have influenced the young J.R.R. Tolkien, then growing up in Birmingham.

Burne-Jones was a very strong influence on the Birmingham Group of artists, from the 1890s onwards.

116 Burne-Jones Paintings

The Love Song (Le Chant d'Amour), 1865 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

The Love Song (Le Chant d'Amour) 1865

Oil Painting
$2028
Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6478
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 54.9 x 77.7 cm
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, USA

Flamma Vestalis, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Flamma Vestalis n.d.

Oil Painting
$1373
Canvas Print
$78.32
SKU: BJS-6479
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 67.9 x 46.3 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

Danae Watching the Building of the Brazen Tower, 1872 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Danae Watching the Building of the Brazen Tower 1872

Oil Painting
$1229
Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6480
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 17.8 x 26 cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

The Last Judgement, c.1874/75 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

The Last Judgement c.1874/75

Canvas Print
$69.46
SKU: BJS-6481
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Hope, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Hope n.d.

Canvas Print
$68.54
SKU: BJS-6482
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Angel Musician (Detail), 1882 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Angel Musician (Detail) 1882

Canvas Print
$55.39
SKU: BJS-6483
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The Morning of the Resurrection, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

The Morning of the Resurrection n.d.

Oil Painting
$1799
Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6484
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The Choristers, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

The Choristers n.d.

Oil Painting
$1575
Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6487
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Harrogate Museums and Art Gallery, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

The Musicians, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

The Musicians n.d.

Oil Painting
$1575
Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6488
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Harrogate Museums and Art Gallery, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Astrologia, 1865 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Astrologia 1865

Oil Painting
$1327
Canvas Print
$63.14
SKU: BJS-6489
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 54.5 x 46.5 cm
Private Collection

King Solomon Holding the Temple, 1890 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

King Solomon Holding the Temple 1890

Canvas Print
$63.22
SKU: BJS-6490
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Cupid and Psyche, c.1865/87 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Cupid and Psyche c.1865/87

Oil Painting
$1746
Canvas Print
$57.55
SKU: BJS-6491
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 64.9 x 49.4 cm
Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, United Kingdom

The Sleeping Beauty, 1871 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

The Sleeping Beauty 1871

Oil Painting
$1229
Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6492
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 25.9 x 36 cm
Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, United Kingdom

The Hours, c.1870/82 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

The Hours c.1870/82

Oil Painting
$3711
Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6493
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 77.5 x 183.4 cm
Galleries and Museums, Sheffield, United Kingdom

Holy Grail Tapestry, c.1895/96 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Holy Grail Tapestry c.1895/96

Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6494
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 244 x 695 cm
Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Many-Winged Angel, 1870 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Many-Winged Angel 1870

Canvas Print
$57.76
SKU: BJS-6495
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Art Galleries and Museums, Bradford, United Kingdom

Angel Swinging a Censer, 1870 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Angel Swinging a Censer 1870

Canvas Print
$65.30
SKU: BJS-6496
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: unknown
Art Galleries and Museums, Bradford, United Kingdom

Repose in Egypt, 1874 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Repose in Egypt 1874

Paper Art Print
$54.51
SKU: BJS-6497
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 53.3 x 43.1 cm
Private Collection

An Angel Playing a Flageolet, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

An Angel Playing a Flageolet n.d.

Oil Painting
$1033
Canvas Print
$49.73
SKU: BJS-6498
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 25 x 17.5 cm
The Makins Collection, Washington, USA

Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt n.d.

Paper Art Print
$47.36
SKU: BJS-6499
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 23.3 x 15 cm
The Makins Collection, Washington, USA

The Call of Perseus, c.1876 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

The Call of Perseus c.1876

Oil Painting
$1829
Canvas Print
$76.75
SKU: BJS-6500
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 152.5 x 127 cm
City Art Gallery, Southampton, United Kingdom

St. George and the Dragon: The Return, 1866 by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

St. George and the Dragon: The Return 1866

Oil Painting
$2308
Canvas Print
$72.95
SKU: BJS-6501
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 104.7 x 134.6 cm
Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol, United Kingdom

Saturn, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Saturn n.d.

Paper Art Print
$47.36
SKU: BJS-6502
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 82 x 52 cm
Private Collection

Jupiter, n.d. by Burne-Jones | Painting Reproduction

Jupiter n.d.

Paper Art Print
$47.36
SKU: BJS-6503
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Original Size: 82 x 52 cm
Private Collection

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