Edward Burne-Jones
This striking image is a portrait of Jane Morris in the early years of her marriage to the artist’s close friend and artistic collaborator, William Morris. She is identified by her dramatic, barely tamed, wavy hair and medieval-style dress, which she designed and made herself. Jane Morris was probably the most iconic Pre-Raphaelite model; her swan-neck pose is typical of the many later paintings of her by fellow Pre-Raphaelite, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was one of Burne-Jones’s inspirations. The framing device of stylized trees and leaves points to the groundbreaking design work developed and pioneered by William Morris’ company Morris & Co. Jane Morris and her daughters were pioneering craftswomen, producing and designing art needlework for Morris & Co.
This is a wood engraving, made from Burne-Jones’s design. Wood engravings were well-suited to mass production as they produced clear black-and-white images. Burne-Jones made the drawing directly onto a box wood block. It was then passed to a team of engravers; in this case the Dalziel Brothers, who ran a commercial wood-engraving studio and were regarded as the most skillful engravers in London during the 1860s. Occasionally individual master engravers were employed in this work; many women also trained as wood engravers in the 19th century including Georgiana, Burne-Jones’s wife. It is just possible that she might have had a hand in this engraving. Artists and engravers corresponded closely over the finished engravings, in order for the effect of the original drawing to be followed as closely as possible.
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P.P.S. Many other romantic paintings by Edward Burne-Jones will make you miss the Middle Ages!