Sunday, December 2, 2012

The Face


2 comments:

  1. Perhaps you could help? I'm trying to locate a photograph of Bessie Burden - reportedly better looking than Jane, although Morris didnt care for her. Strange that she doesnt appear in family photographs isnt it? Do you have an image of her?
    Many thanks if you can help. Julia at rossetian.blogspot.com

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  2. Hi,

    does your blog exist ? couldn't find it on Google.

    I think I've tracked nearly every picture of Jane and her family but there are two subjects that I can't find or don't exist, Bessie and William and Jane together. Burne-Jones is said to have sketched William and Jane but I can't find it anywhere. Fiona MacCarthy also mentions a photograph of Jane and Bessie as teenage girls but again I can't find it. In the days of more formal sittings nobody seems to have sketched or photographed Bessie but I suspect there must be later ones of her at the Needlework School say that are unidentified. But a lot of that material seems to have been destroyed in WW2, though Jan Marsh says some material seems to have survived. I would love to trawl through the William Morris Gallery archives but I am disabled and can't go.

    If you do find anything please let me know. She was a more important figure than is given credit.

    Phillip

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