Ariadne

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.

1 ottobre 1861

Son born: Philip Burne-Jones

1862

Morris’s firm noticed at the International Exhibition

The work the firm showed at the 1862 International Exhibition attracted notice, and the business went on to flourish.

1864

“The Merciful Knight” at the Old Water-Colour Society

Elected an associate of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours (the “Old Water-Colour Society”), he exhibited there, among other works, “The Merciful Knight”, the first picture that fully revealed his ripened personality as an artist. The next six years saw a series of fine watercolours at the same gallery.

winter 1864

Death of his newborn son Christopher

In the winter of 1864 Georgiana fell gravely ill with scarlet fever and gave birth to a second son, Christopher, who died soon afterwards. The family then moved to 41 Kensington Square, where their daughter Margaret was born in 1866.

1866

Meets Maria Zambaco

Mrs Cassavetti commissioned him to paint her daughter, Maria Zambaco, in “Cupid Finding Psyche”; the introduction led to a passionate affair, described as the “emotional climax of his life”. It ended with Maria trying to kill herself by throwing herself into Regent’s Canal.