Jane Burden

Encyclopedia : J : JA : JAN : Jane Burden

Jane Burden (October 19 1839 – January 1914) was the embodiment of the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. She became the wife of William Morris and the inspiration, and possibly mistress, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Jane Morris painted by her lover Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Proserpine (1874)

Jane Morris by Evelyn de Morgan in 1904

She was born in Oxford. At the time of her birth, her father Robert Burden was a stableman and lived with his wife (Jane's mother), Ann Burden (formerly Maizey) at St. Helen's Passages, St. Peter in the East, Oxford. Jane's mother, who was illiterate, probably came to Oxford as a domestic servant. Little is known about Jane's childhood but it was clearly one of poverty and deprivation.

In October 1857, Jane and her sister Elizabeth (known in the family as Bessie) were attending a performance in Oxford of the Drury Lane Theatre Company. Jane was noticed by the artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones who were part of a group of artists painting murals in the Oxford Union based on Arthurian tales. Struck by Jane's beauty, they sought her to model for them. Jane initially sat mainly for Rossetti who needed a model for Queen Guinivere. After this, Jane sat to Morris who was working on an easel painting, La Belle Iseult (Tate Gallery). During this period, Morris fell in love with Jane and they were engaged.

Jane's education was extremely limited and she was probably intended to go into domestic service. After her engagement, Jane was privately educated. Her keen intelligence allowed her essentially to re-create herself. She was a voracious reader and became proficient in French and later Italian. She also became an accomplished pianist with a strong background in classical music. Her manners and speech became refined to an extent that contemporaries referred to her as "Queenly." Later in life, she would have no trouble moving in upper class circles and she appears to have been the model for Mrs Higgins in Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion (1914).

She married William Morris at St. Michael's Church, Oxford, on April 26 1859. Her father was at that time described as a groom, in stables at 65 Holywell Street, Oxford.

Jane Burden and William Morris lived firstly at the Red House in Bexleyheath, Kent. While at there, they had two daughters, Jane Alice (Jenny) born January 1861 and Mary (May) (March 1862 – 1938), who was the editor of her father's works. They then lived for many years at Kelmscott Manor, on the Oxfordshire-Wiltshire borders, which is now open to the public. Jane became closely attached to Rossetti and may, in addition to being his muse, have been his lover.

William Morris died on 3 Septemeber 1896 at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, London. Jane died on 26 January, 1914 while staying at 5 Brock Street, Bath.

Additional images

Paintings of Jane Morris by Dante Gabriel Rossetti:

[The Blue Silk Dress, 1868] [Complete image of Persephone or Proserpine, 1874]

References

Jane and May Morris: A Biographical Story 1839-1938 (1986) by Jan Marsh
Jane Morris: The Pre-Raphaelite Model of Beauty (2000) by Debra N. Mancoff

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.