Janey Morris: Pre-Raphaelite Muse
Past display archive
12 November 2013 - 11 May 2014
Room 28: case display
Free
Jane Morris (née Burden)
by John Robert Parsons, copied by Emery Walker Ltd
July 1865
From the series copied by Emery Walker, NPG x137525-8
To mark the centenary of her death in January 1914, this display features the dark-haired Pre-Raphaelite model Jane Burden (Mrs William Morris). Born in 1839, daughter of a stableman and laundress, she is seen in iconic guise - as Pandora, Proserpine, Astarte - in many paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
In her own right she was a renowned embroiderer in the Arts & Crafts movement, and actively involved in the family firm Morris & Co. Known to family and friends as Janey, she is seen here in photographs taken by Frederick Hollyer in 1874 and by Emery Walker in 1898, together with portraits of her husband, poet, designer and Socialist, their daughters Jenny and May, and friends Georgiana (‘Georgie’) and Edward (‘Ned’) Burne-Jones.
Other works portray her circle of close friends: Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle, suffragist Jane Cobden, architect Philip Webb, poet Algernon Swinburne and artist Marie Stillman, and her lovers Rossetti and Wilfred Scawen Blunt. Several images in this four-case display are prints that Jane herself owned; those of her in widowhood, taken at Kelmscott Manor, are previously unshown.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Related portraits
- Rosalind Frances (née Stanley), Countess of Carlisle (NPG 6206)
- William Morris (NPG 3652)
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti (NPG 3033)
- Philip Speakman Webb (NPG 4310)
- Algernon Charles Swinburne (NPG 2216)
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti (NPG 3048)
- The Burne-Jones and Morris families (NPG x11881)
- Jane Alice ('Jenny') Morris; Sir Philip Burne-Jones, 2nd Bt; Margaret Mackail (née Burne-Jones); May Morris (NPG x19861)
- Michael Stillman; Marie Stillman (née Spartali) (NPG x38857)
- Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (NPG x1114)
- 'The pilgrims of Siena' (NPG x6955)
- May Morris (NPG x19858)
- Jane Alice ('Jenny') Morris (NPG x3742)
- Jane Morris (née Burden) (NPG x19602)
- Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (NPG D1079)
- Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (NPG x1115)
Related sitters
- Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
- Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Bt
- Georgiana (née Macdonald), Lady Burne-Jones
- Sir Philip Burne-Jones, 2nd Bt
- Rosalind Frances (née Stanley), Countess of Carlisle
- (Julia Sarah) Anne Cobden-Sanderson
- Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson
- (Emma) Jane Catherine Cobden Unwin
- Richard Jones
- Margaret Mackail (née Burne-Jones)
- Jane Morris (née Burden)
- Jane Alice ('Jenny') Morris
- Mary ('May') Morris
- William Morris
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
- Marie Stillman (née Spartali)
- Michael Stillman
- Algernon Charles Swinburne
- Philip Speakman Webb