Several copies made by Burne-Jones in Italy in 1859, notably a sketch of Titian's La Bella (1536) in the Pitti, show him responsive to these new ideas, and they soon impinge on his original productions too. There is a Venetian quality about the female figures in the foreground of Buondelmonte's Wedding (cat. no. 7), a section of the drawing that was almost certainly finished after his return from Italy; and it emerges more strongly in the von Bork watercolours of the following year (cat. nos. 12, 13). He also made a number of essays in the half-length format of Bocca Baciata (cat. no. 19), as well as developing a distinct line in Giorgionesque idylls (cat. nos. 17, 30), the best known being the Green Summer of 1864 (fig. 63). There is even a painting heavily influenced by Carpaccio (cat. no. 27), an artist he had paid great attention to in 1859. More generally, the prevailing spirit found expression in his move to watercolour, his use of which stood in much the same relation to Venetian painting as his pen drawings did to Diirers prints. Fanny sat to Burne-Jones as well as to Rossetti (cat. nos. 15, 19).
Green Summer (watercolour or gouache on paper, 1864). The models include Jane Morris (center, holding a peacock feather) and Georgiana Burne-Jones (second from right, reading a book. A version in oils was completed in 1868.
The idea for this work originated in a decorative scheme for a cabinet designed by Philip Webb in 1861. Green Summer was painted while Burne-Jones was staying with William Morris at the Red House, Bexley.