SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1833-1898)
SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1833-1898)
SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1833-1898)
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PROPERTY FROM A NOTABLE BRITISH COLLECTOR
SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1833-1898)

'Justice', Study for a stained glass window in Kolkata Cathedral

Details
SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1833-1898)
'Justice', Study for a stained glass window in Kolkata Cathedral
pencil on paper
9 7⁄8 x 5 1⁄8 in. (25.1 x 12.9 cm.)
Provenance
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, Belgravia, 11 December 1979, lot 17.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, Belgravia, 23 June 1981, lot 25.
with Julian Hartnoll, London, as A naked figure for Arthur in Avalon.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 25 October 1988, lot 269.
Anonymous sale; Phillips, London, 15 May 1995, lot 93.
with Shepherd Gallery, New York, until 2001.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 11 July 2019, lot 1, where purchased by the present owner.
Literature
A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle, vol. I, New Haven and London, 1974, p. 219.
Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonné, online edition, unnumbered.
Exhibited
Manchester, Manchester School of Art, Drawings by the Late Sir Edward Burne-Jones Bart, October - December 1905, unnumbered.
New York, Shepherd Gallery, English Romantic Art 1840-1920, Pre-Raphaelites, Academics, Symbolists, Drawings, Watercolours, 1989, no. 8.
New York, Shepherd Gallery, English Romantic Art 1840-1920, 1998, no. 8.

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Alastair Plumb
Alastair Plumb Specialist, Head of Sale, European Art

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Lot Essay

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, Kolkata.

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 6th 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. A full-scale cartoon of the same figure, fully draped, was sold in these Rooms, 25 May 2023, lot 126.

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.

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