Sir Edward Coley Burnes-Jones
1833-1898

Edward Coley Burne-Jones is the professional name of Edward Coley Jones, English painter, designer, and illustrator, born in Birmingham. He was trained at the University of Oxford, where he befriended poet and artist William Morris. Both men trained with the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who reinforced their desire to restore to art the purity of form, stylization, and high moral tone of medieval painting and design.

Burne-Jones paintings, inspired by medieval, classical, and biblical themes, are noted for their sentimentality and dreamlike romanticized style; they are generally considered among the finest works of the Pre-Raphaelite school. He designed stained-glass windows, mosaics, and tapestries for Morris' firm. His windows can be seen in many English churches, including Christ Church, Oxford, and Birmingham Cathedral. He also illustrated books of Morris's Kelmscott Press, notably Chaucer (1896). Burne-Jones was knighted in 1894.