Edward Burne-JonesBritish, 1833–1898Sketchbook
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Not on view at present
Where is “Sketchbook” now? Collection: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Cambridge, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Studies for the "Perseus" series (begun 1875), "The Passing of Venus," "The Wheel of Fortune," (1875-83), "The Car of Love," (begun 1870), and the St. Catherine Window, Christ Church, Oxford (1878). Also a portrait sketch of Mrs. Drummond.
Harvard Art Museums
Details
- Accession number
- 1943.1815.18.1-14
In the catalog
Sources
- Harvard Art Museums
- Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
In the life of Edward Burne-Jones
The whole life1870
The “Phyllis and Demophoön” scandal: he quits the Society
Maria Zambaco’s features were clearly recognisable in the barely draped Phyllis, and Demophoön’s nakedness offended Victorian sensibilities. Asked to make a slight alteration, Burne-Jones instead withdrew not only the picture from the walls but himself from the Society.
1870–1877
Seven years away from exhibitions: turning to oils
After bitterly hostile attacks in the press he exhibited only two works in these years, yet worked unremittingly: he turned from watercolour to oils and planned the first “Briar Rose” series, “Laus Veneris”, “The Golden Stairs”, the “Pygmalion” series and “The Mirror of Venus”. His partnership with the photographer Frederick Hollyer, whose reproductions brought his work to a wide audience, also began then.
1870s
Georgiana grows close to Morris
In these difficult years Georgiana developed a friendship with Morris, whose wife Jane had fallen in love with Rossetti. If he asked her to leave her husband, she refused: both couples stayed together, and Georgiana and Morris remained close for the rest of their lives.
1873
“Love Among the Ruins” at the Dudley Gallery
Two watercolours shown at the Dudley Gallery in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, were his only exhibited works of 1870–1877. One of them, “Love Among the Ruins”, was destroyed twenty years later by a cleaner who took it for an oil painting, and the artist afterwards reproduced it in oils.
1875
The firm becomes Morris & Co.
After the firm was reorganised as Morris & Co., Burne-Jones went on designing stained glass, and later tapestries, for it until the end of his career. His windows are in Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, St Philip’s Cathedral in Birmingham, Salisbury Cathedral and many other churches.
May 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.
