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Jane Morris (née Burden; 19 October 1839 – 26 January 1914) was an English embroiderer in the Arts and Crafts movement and an artists' model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. She was a model and muse to her husband William Morris and to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Her sister was the embroiderer and teacher Elizabeth Burden.
In October 1857, Burden and her sister Elizabeth Burden, known as Bessie, attended a performance of the Drury Lane Theatre Company in Oxford. Jane Burden was noticed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones who were members of a group of artists painting the Oxford Union murals, based on King Arthur tales. Struck by her beauty, they asked her to model for them. Burden sat mostly for Rossetti as a model for Queen Guinevere and afterwards for William Morris, who was working on an easel painting, La Belle Iseult, now in the Tate Gallery. During this period, Morris fell in love with Burden and they became engaged, though by her own admission she was not in love with Morris.
She became a skilled needlewoman, self-taught in ancient embroidery techniques, and later became renowned for her own embroideries.
Jane married William Morris at St Michael at the Northgate in Oxford on 26 April 1859. After the marriage, the Morrises moved to the quasi-medieval Red House in Bexleyheath, Kent. While living there, they had two daughters, Jane Alice "Jenny," born 17 January 1861, and May Morris born 25 March 1862, who later edited her father's works. They moved to 26 Queen Square in London, which they shared with the design firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., and later bought Kelmscott House in Hammersmith as their main residence. Although Jane, her daughters Jenny and May, and her sister Bessie all supervised and embroidered for Morris & Co., credit for the designs were given to William Morris himself "in the interests of commercial success." The three embroidered panels depicting the illustrious women of Geoffrey Chaucer and Tennyson's writing now at Castle Howard were produced by Jane and Bessie in the 1880s.
In 1871, William Morris and Rossetti took out a joint tenancy on Kelmscott Manor on the Gloucestershire–Oxfordshire–Wiltshire borders. William Morris went to Iceland, leaving his wife and Rossetti to furnish the house and spend the summer there. Jane Morris had become closely attached to Rossetti and became a favourite muse of his. Their romantic relationship is reputed to have started in the late 1860s and lasted, on differing levels, until his death in 1882. They shared a deep emotional connection, and she inspired Rossetti to write poetry and create some of his best paintings. Her discovery of his dependence on chloral hydrate, which was taken for insomnia, eventually led her to distance herself from him, although they stayed in touch until he died in 1882.
In 1883, Jane Morris met the poet and political activist Wilfrid Scawen Blunt at a house party given by her close friend, Rosalind Howard (later Countess of Carlisle). There appears to have been an immediate attraction between them. By 1887 at the latest, they had become lovers.Mancoff, p.98 Their sexual relationship continued until 1894 and they remained close friends until her death.
A few months before her death, she bought Kelmscott Manor to secure it for her daughters' future. However, she did not return to the house after having purchased it. Jane Morris died on 26 January 1914, while staying at 5 Brock Street in Bath. She is buried in the churchyard of St. George's Church in Kelmscott.
Paintings of Jane Morris by Dante Gabriel Rossetti:
Photographs of Jane Burden by Rossetti are available at [3].
By William Morris:
By Edward Burne-Jones:
By Evelyn De Morgan:
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