Artist: Sir Edward Burne Jones (British, 1833-1898)
Title: Sibyl Window in Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge
Medium: Antique color print on wove paper after the original stained glass window.
Dimensions: Image Size 5 5/8 x 7 1/4 inches.
Framed Dimensions: Approximately 15 x 16 inches.
Framing: This piece has been professionally matted and framed using all new materials.
The Delphic Sibyl, also known as Sibylla Delphica, was a prominent figure in Greek mythology, venerated as an oracle and prophetess in the sacred precinct of Apollo at Delphi. She was believed to be able to foretell the future and offer prophecies. Depictions of the Delphic Sibyl often portray her as a wise and contemplative woman, sometimes seated on a throne or holding a book, symbolizing her knowledge and foresight.
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet ARA was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Burne-Jones was closely involved in the rejuvenation of the tradition of stained glass art in Britain; his stained glass works include the windows of St. Philip’s Cathedral, Birmingham, St Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham, Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, Chelsea, St Martin’s Church in Brampton, Cumbria (the church designed by Philip Webb), St Michael’s Church, Brighton, All Saints, Jesus Lane, Cambridge, Christ Church, Oxford and in St. Anne’s Church, Brown Edge, Staffordshire Moorlands. Burne-Jones’s early paintings show the heavy inspiration of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but by the 1860s Burne-Jones was discovering his own artistic “voice”. In 1877, he was persuaded to show eight oil paintings at the Grosvenor Gallery (a new rival to the Royal Academy). These included The Beguiling of Merlin. The timing was right, and he was taken up as a herald and star of the new Aesthetic Movement. In addition to painting and stained glass, Burne-Jones worked in a variety of crafts; including designing ceramic tiles, jewellery, tapestries, mosaics and book illustration, most famously designing woodcuts for the Kelmscott Press’s Chaucer in 1896.