He went to Exeter College at the University of Oxford in 1853, & his intention was to take Holy Orders. Here he met his lifelong friend William Morris. They called each other Ned & Topsy. Here they first heard of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They jointly developed a fascination with Arthurian legend. Edward Jones became an agnostic, & art replaced religion in his life. Jones did not stay to take a degree.

In London in the mid 1850s he met his artistic hero Rossetti, who became his mentor, & they were friends until Rossetti’s death in 1882. Jones then moved to London, sharing rooms with Morris. He assisted Rossetti in the creation of the unsuccessful mural at the Oxford Union. In 1860 Jones married Georgiana MacDonald, one of the remarkable Macdonald sisters. Another sister married Edward Poynter, a further sister married the ironmaster Alfred Baldwin & was the mother of the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin 1867-1947, & yet another sister was the mother of Rudyard Kipling 1864-1936.

Edward Jones acquired the extra surname Burne to differentiate himself from the legions of Jones’s who painted. He combined a spartan asceticism, a love of ancient legend, & a sense of humor. William Morris founded his famous company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkener & Co in 1861 where Jones worked as designer of stained glass church windows for the company to the end of his life. One of his last designs was the impressive set of windows for St. Phillips Cathedral, in Birmingham. In the early 1860s Jones made his first visit to Italy. In the mid 1860s, he started to gain a reputation as a painter, & to sell some pictures.

In the 1870s Burne-Jones became gradually more successful, though his patrons were a closed circle of wealthy & sophisticated people. He became friendly with the aristocratic artist George Howard, Earl of Carlisle, who produced some excellent drawings of him. His diffidence, & reluctance to exhibit publicly meant he was unknown to the wider public. In 1877, Burne-Jones was persuaded to exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery. Overnight he became a famous painter. In the 1880s, he outshone both Millais and Leighton and was regarded as the greatest living British artist. In the 1890s his health declined, & the death of William Morris in 1896 was a crushing blow. He had been created a baronet in 1894. Burne-Jones died suddenly at his house at Rottingdean in 1898

“An important long-lost painting from the height of Burne-Jones’ career, A Sea-Nymph is a great rarity on today’s market,” says Christie’s consultant and Burne-Jones expert, John Christian. “Perhaps what impresses most is its astonishingly bold and sophisticated design, reflecting its origins in his protean work as a decorative artist. The painting is a work of startling originality.”
Burne-Jones drew artistic inspiration from classical mythology and the medieval dream world. The sea-nymph, or mermaid, was a favourite subject, particularly after he acquired a country retreat in the picturesque village of Rottingdean, on the Sussex coast, in 1880. A Sea-Nymph is depicted with extravagant arabesques of red hair, echoing the forms of the rolling waves and holding fishes in either hand. Anticipating Art Nouveau, the design appears strikingly modern, while retaining the ethereal, dream-like qualities that Burne-Jones sought to achieve in his works.
The image was originally conceived in 1875 as part of a design for a woven fabric by Burne-Jones’s life-long friend and collaborator William Morris. Tapestries apart, the design represents Burne-Jones’s only contribution to a fabric design. The figure was also re-interpreted in 1878 in terms of a gesso relief, which may later have hung at Burne-Jones house at Rottingdean.

Christie’s is to re-unite A Sea-Nymph with its pendant painting by Burne-Jones, A Wood-Nymph, in an exhibition entitled “Daughters of Delight” on 8-16 March 2005. The exhibition will take place at King Street, the place where the two works parted company in 1908. A Wood-Nymph, was also painted by Burne-Jones in 1880, owned by William Connal and hung in his Berkeley Square house and was sold alongside A Sea-Nymph at Christie’s. It was bought in 1908 by Alexander Reid, the great Glaswegian art dealer who introduced Scottish collectors to the French Impressionists and was painted by Van Gogh, and eventually made its way into the Humphrey Talbot Collection in the South African National Gallery.
On loan from Cape Town, A Wood-Nymph will be re-united with A Sea-Nymph, and hung with several other related exhibits from UK public and private collections including The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. The exhibits will include the original design for fabric by William Morris, related paintings and drawings by Burne-Jones, and material documenting the history of The Sea-Nymph in the Connal family collection. Curator of the exhibition, John Christian, says: “To anyone interested in Pre-Raphaelitism and the Arts and Crafts movement, the exhibition should be fascinating.” The exhibition comes at a time of ever-increasing appreciation of the significance of the Arts and Crafts movement. An exhibition entitled International Arts and Crafts opens at The Victoria and Albert Museum on 17 March 2005.

Burne-Jones captures the Victorian need for artistic uplift in his massive canvas based on a popular poem.

The Beggar Maid
by Lord Alfred Tennyson
Her arms across her breast she laid;
She was more fair than words can say;
Barefooted came the beggar maid
Before the king Cophetua.
In robe and crown the king stept down,
To meet and greet her on her way;
‘It is no wonder,’ said the lords,
‘She is more beautiful than day.’

As shines the moon in clouded skies,
She in her poor attire was seen;
One praised her ankles, one her eyes,
One her dark hair and lovesome mien.
So sweet a face, such angel grace,
In all that land had never been.
Cophetua sware a royal oath:
‘This beggar maid shall be my queen!’

The auction and sale of this newly rediscovered work should make things very interesting this spring if noted collectors like Sir Andrew Lloyd-Weber or Seattle's Bill Gates decide they want it.