Justitia, for a stained-glass window at St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta

Justice was a subject Burne-Jones depicted many times in stained glass window designs for Marshall, Morris, Faulkner & Co. Often taking very different compositions and poses, he explored the subject in relation to those it would sit alongside. The present drawing is a study for the west windows of St Paul’s Cathedral, Calcutta.

Morris & Co. were commissioned in 1873 by the Bishop of Calcutta, Robert Milman, to design the west window of St Paul’s as a memorial to the 6^th Earl Mayo, Viceroy of India, who died in 1872. It seems likely that Burne-Jones was recommended as the designer by his brother-in-law, John Lockwood Kipling, who was heavily involved in the world of art in India.

The window was designed with five figures in the upper tier: Enoch, David, Salvator Mundi, Solomon and Elijah; and five in the lower tier: St Thomas, Charity, St Michael Weighing Souls, and St Paul. Burne-Jones’s account book also makes reference to ‘5 subjects’ having been designed, including ‘Reception of the Souls into Paradise’, ‘St Paul Preaching’ and ‘Calling of St Peter’, although these were not realised. A preparatory pencil sketch for the ten final figures is at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (1927P440), and a nude preparatory sketch for the present design was sold at Sotheby’s, 11 July 2019, lot 1.

This design for Justice, as a woman in armour holding a crown and a sword, was reused by Morris & Co. several times, including for windows at St Stephen's at Gateacre in Lancashire in 1883, the Albion Congregational Church in Ashton-Under-Lyne in 1893 and for the church of St Andrew and St Paul in Montreal in 1903.