Burne-Jones, Edward Coley (1833-1898)

A portrait by English Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones of Sidonia von Borke, painted in 1860. The picture shows the interest in a legendary past that is characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelites.

English painter. In 1856 he was apprenticed to the Pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who remained a dominant influence. His paintings, inspired by legend and myth, were characterized by elongated forms and subdued tones, as in King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (1880-84; Tate Gallery, London). He also collaborated with William Morris in designing stained-glass windows, tapestries, and book decorations for the Kelmscott Press. His work influenced both Symbolism and art nouveau. He was created a baronet in 1894.

He and William Morris, whom he met in 1853 when they were undergraduates at Oxford, represent a second phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement into which they were inducted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, taking part with him in decorating the walls of the Oxford Union in 1857. Burne-Jones's work as a painter was guided by a love of the legendary past, and after 1862, when he visited Italy in company with his wife and John Ruskin, by Italian models, in particular by Botticelli and Mantegna. A wistful nostalgia characterizes such paintings as his King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid and The Golden Stairs (Tate Gallery).