White Lies

May, who described herself as having 'play-fever
badly' tried her own hand as a dramatist. Her play Lady Griselda's Dream
appeared in Longmans Magazine in June 189811 and a second, White Lies. A Play
in Oue Act, was privately printed by the Chiswick Press in 1903.

William disliked plays as he got older but acted in Socialist entertainments and was said to be a brilliant mimic. Jane loved plays but seldom went with her husband who often made very loud remarks on the play or actors.

Study of Jane Morris as Beatrice for the painting 'Dante's Dream'

• Study of Jane Morris as Beatrice for the painting 'Dante's Dream' in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; half-length female figure lying to right, with long hair, her hands crossed over her chest and eyes closed. 1870 Red, black and white chalk on light green paper

• 
  
  • Drawn by: Dante Gabriel Rossetti 

Celebrating May Morris

http://events.history.ac.uk/event/show/7139

Celebrating May Morris:Textile Artist and Editor of William Morris, by Jan Marsh.
Tuesday, October 23 2012, 12:00am - 2:00am
London

“Janey Morris: Pre-Raphaelite Muse” at the National Portrait Gallery

“Janey Morris: Pre-Raphaelite Muse” at the National Portrait Gallery

Tweeter

London, 14 October 2013, Art Media Agency (AMA).

http://www.artmediaagency.com/en/75066/janey-morris-pre-raphaelite-muse-at-the-national-portrait-gallery/

Kelmscott House

Kelmscott House, William Morris Society, 26 Upper Mall / London / W6 9TA 

http://londonmuseumsmap.org.uk/print/kelmscott_house
http://www.notableabodes.com/person-abode-details/5853/william-morris-artist_kelmscott-house-26-upper-mall-hammersmith-london

Jane BURDEN (Mrs William Morris) (1839–1914)

The plaque was unveiled on 19 October 2007 by Dr Jan Marsh, President of the William Morris Society. It is erected on the modern wall of the Hertford College building in St Helen’s Passage (off New College Lane) where some of the dwellings had stood.

La Ghirlandada

La Ghirlandata and the unfinished counterpart. In 1873 D.G Rossetti produced The Drawing, Chalk and Oil Painting La Ghirlandada with Alexa Wilding modelling for the central figure and May Morris for the cherubs. According to Virginia Surtees Rossetti planned another painting that would act as a companion to the oil painting, the pen and brown ink sketch, made two years later, shows his plans for this painting, the model is Jane Morris.

Jenny and William

Morris adored Jenney [sic]. He could not sit in the same
room without his arm around her waist. His voice changed
when he spoke to her as it changed to no one else ... Their
harmony seemed to me to be perfect.

G.B. Shaw
The Observer, 6 November 1949

Rossetti's real love

Caine quotes,, Rossetti's comment on somewhat different circumstances: 'To marry one woman and then find out when it is too late, that you love another is the
deepest tragedy that can enter into a man's life.' Caine's Recollections of
Dante Gamel Rossetti, 1882. published four months after Rossetti's death,
was silent on these matters.

Jane and Dante

For close on thirty years after the death of Gabricl. William Michael
Rossetti conscientiously edited his brother's literary remains. producing over
a dozen volumes, many of them stout, without ever referring to the association. Lady Burne-Jones and ]. W. Mackail, Morris' biographer. were equally
silent. F. G. Stephens, Rossetti's friend and the regular reviewer of his paintings,
was so circumspect that in his Dante Gabriel Rouetti, (p. 74), he
affected to discern a reference to Miss Alexa Wilding in the sonnet, 'The
Portrait', in which Rossetti expressed his exultant infatuation for ]aney.

Nothing was revealed in the posthumously published Recollections of Dante
GabrieJ Ronetti and his Circle, Treffry Dunn, Rossetti's studio
assistant. T. Watts-Dunton never achieved his long contemplated definitive
biography. H. C. Marillier, whose Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An illustrated
memorialof his life and art, 1899, remains the most comprehensive and useful
picture book on the subject, was wholly discreet. May Morris was understandably
reticent in discussing the intimate lives of her parents and said little
about her mother's relations with Rossetti. But she chose as frontispiece for
Vol. V of The Collected Works of William Morris, Rossetti's first painting
of ]aney. completed in 1868, with its Latin inscription equivalent in meaning
to the concluding line of 'The Portrait'-'They that would look on her must
come to me'. Rossetti's 'Water-Willow' is the frontispiece for Vol. IV.

Jane Burden discovered

Jane was 'discovered' in 1857 with Bessie (her sister) at the theatre in Oxford. At the time Oxford did not have a permanent theatre and this was the Drury Lane touring company who performed in the gymnasium in Oriel Street. Jan Marsh says the play was probably Ben Bolt which I can't trace. It was not very respectable for girls on their own to visit the theater until the end of the century. 

According to]. W. Mackail, Life of William Morris) OUP ed. 1950, i, '40,
it was Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones who first met Jane Burden. Lady
Burne-Jones, in her Memorials of Edward Burne-fones, 1904. i, 168, states that
Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Arthur Hughes and William Morris were all at the
theatre together when the meeting took place.

Treasures of British Art: Tate Gallery (Tiny Folio) [Hardcover] Robert Upstone (Author)

William Morris from The Earthly Paradise

Other May Morris photographs by Frederick Hollyer

http://www.npg.org.uk/

May Morris by Frederick Hollyer

William Morris Gallery, London Borough of Waltham Forest
1887

William Morris by Frederick Hollyer

platinum print, half length, head resting on his right fist, on the original mounting card, Hollyer's copyright stamp on verso with his 9 Pembroke Square address,framed and glazed, size of photograph 5½ x 4 inches (14 x 10 cm), size of image 9 ½ x 7 ½ inches (24 x 19 cm), overall size 14 ½ x 12 ½ inches (37 x 32 cm) [1886] 

This celebrated photograph of Morris, by his friend and colleague, was taken in 1886 and was produced later that year as a photogravure by Walker and Boutall. A version of it was kept by May Morris in her album (Ashmolean).


http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20923/lot/343/

William Morris, early 1890s by Henry Halliday Sparling

Rossetti as designer

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/rossetti/works/designer/index.aspx

interesting but Jane's role is not mentioned.
She designed her own clothes; they went shopping for jewelry together and I would guess helped with the poses. We know gradually that she helped William with his work in the early days much more than was once realised