Abstract:
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898) did not consider himself a portraitist, although he produced a significant number of portraits during his lifetime. According to his wife, Georgiana, “portrait-painting was distasteful to Edward, who always said so on occasion, but special reasons overcame the feeling from time to time.” My thesis addresses the special reasons that compelled Burne-Jones to overcome his aversion to portraiture. His sitters were friends and relatives: portrait production became a vital part of his domestic, romantic, and social life. I begin by introducing the first sitters – his wife, Georgiana Burne-Jones, and his mistress, Maria Zambaco, and then his daughter, Margaret Burne-Jones. I discuss how Burne-Jones cultivated relationships with Katie Lewis and various children from his social circle, whom he called his pets. I complete my examination with two series called Portraits of Prominent Women and the Topsy Cartoons: Burne-Jones was an enthusiastic caricaturist. Finally I provide a comprehensive catalogue, which surveys 66 portraits in multiple media. Assessing the oeuvre in its entirety is the most effective way to highlight the special reasons that motivated Burne-Jones to make portraits. Scholars have repeated the refrain that he “was a reluctant portraitist at the best of times.” Perhaps study has been discouraged by the fact that Burne-Jones expressed aversion to the genre; his portraits may have been disregarded because so many are stored in private collections. I propose that Burne-Jones was a more willing portraitist than recent scholarship suggests.