Seated Draped Figure

28. August 1833

Born

1853

Meets William Morris at Oxford

While reading theology at Exeter College, Oxford, Burne-Jones met William Morris. Both were captivated by the Pre-Raphaelites’ paintings, and in time both resolved to give up theology for painting.

1856

Meets Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Admirers of Rossetti’s work, Burne-Jones and Morris met him by recruiting him as a contributor to the “Oxford and Cambridge Magazine”, founded by Morris in 1856 to promote the ideas of their Oxford “Brotherhood”. Under Rossetti’s influence both decided to become artists, and Burne-Jones, who had meant to enter the Church, left Oxford without taking a degree.

1861

Co-founds Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

William Morris founded a decorative-arts firm with Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Philip Webb, Charles Faulkner and Peter Paul Marshall as partners. It undertook carving, stained glass, metalwork, wallpapers, printed fabrics and carpets, and from the first the decoration of churches.

1877

Triumph at the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery

At the first exhibition of the new Grosvenor Gallery, a rival to the Royal Academy, he showed eight oil paintings, among them “The Days of Creation”, “The Beguiling of Merlin” and “The Mirror of Venus”. Their success made him the herald and star of the new Aesthetic Movement.

17. Juni 1898

Died