• Introduction & Guide
    • Burne-Jones Studio
  • Artworks
  • Articles & Theses
  • Exhibitions
  • Bibliography
  • Names
    • Artists and People
    • Companies and Institutions
  • About
    • William Waters
    • Trustees
    • Sponsors
    • Contact
  • Donate
By Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Tree of Jesse stained glass design for the east window, the church of Holy Cross and St Lawrence, Waltham Abbey, Essex
Brown, pen and ink over pencil on cream toned paper
1860 - 1861
Dimensions: 30.7 cm x 42 cm
Collection Categories
Drawings and studies, Stained Glass - Designs and sketches, Works on Paper / Vellum
Handwritten. Identification tags of the figures, printed in the artist's own hand recto: Left light (top to bottom): SAMSON/ JOSHUA/ GIDEON/ JACOB/ NOEH [sic]/ ADAM//Middle light (top to bottom): INRI/ EZEKIAS REX/ MANASSES/ JOSIAS REX/ ECUNIAS/ ACHAZ/ SOLOMON R/ DAVID REX/ ROBOAM/ IN THE BEGINNING/ IN THE DAYS/ GENERATION OF JESUS OF THE/ THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST// Right light (top to bottom): JOAHN BAPTISTA/ MALACHI/ MALACHI/ MICAH/ EZEKIEL/ DAVID/ JEREMIAS/ ESAIAS
  • Expertise
  • Provenance
  • Exhibitions
  • Bibliography

This is a stained glass design for the east window of Waltham Abbey executed by James Powell & Sons in 1861. A version of the central panel was exhibited in the International Exhibition in 1862, and is now also in Birmingham's collection (1977M1). Each figure is identified by the artist. The left window, from bottom to top are: Adam (holding fruit, with serpent to his left), Noah (holding a small ark; name spelled 'Noea' or 'Noeh'); Jacob (holding a ladder); Gideon (holding fleece); Joshua (in armour holding the sun and moon); Samson (with flowing tresses); and Moses (unlabelled by the artist, but holding the 2 stone tablets of the Ten Commandments). Middle window, with the actual Tree of Jesse features (from bottom to top): the four animorphic symbols of the Evangelists with scrolls around them quoting the first lines of their respective Gospels (the man's scroll, St. Matthew, reads 'Generations of Jesus Christ of the book of'; above him is the eagle of St. John, whose Gospel begins 'In the beginning was the Word'; opposite is the ox of St. Luke, with 'There was in the days of Herod'; the lion is St. Mark, with 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.). These creatures flank the sleeping body of Jesse, from which the tree springs. The first branch holds (from left to right): Achaz (kneeling in front of an altar with a statue); Solomon (holding the Temple); David (playing a lyre); Roboam (or Roboham, stringing a bow). The next branch supports: Hezekiah (the king, holding a sundial [?]; Manassas (inprisoned and in chains); Josias (the king, holding tablets [?]; Jecunias (bound and chained). The third branch shows two roundels recounting the birth of Christ, with the Nativity scene on the left and the adoration of the shepherds on the right. At the top of the tree is Jesus crucified to it, with his mother and Mary Magdalene flanking it, in mourning. The right panel is incomplete, and features the ancient Hebrew prophets with symbols associated with them, they are (from bottom to top): Esaias (or Isaiah); Jeremias (Jeremiah); Ezekiel (with the eyes of the seraphim in wheels behind him); Daniel (with a lion sleeping at his feet); Malachai and a rough sketch in pencil of Micah that is unfinished. At the very top is John the Baptist, outlined in pen.

Bequeathed by James Richardson Holliday, 1927.

John Christian
01/02/2020

Three years later Burne-Jones was to be involved with another Jesse Tree subject in St Stephen's Parish Church, Guernsey, which was loosely modeled on the Waltham design but with the figures mostly designed by William Morris.

William Waters
19/03/2020

Bequeathed by James Richardson Holliday, 1927

Owner Dates Owned Further Info. and Accession no. circa
James Richardson Holliday (mispelt Holiday) 1927
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery (Birmingham Museums Trust) 1927 - Present 1927P437 Bequeathed by James Richardson Holliday, 1927
Exhibition Catalogue no, Page no, Illustration no. Institution/Venue People From To
William Morris and the Middle Ages : a collection of essays, together with a catalogue of works Whitworth 1984 cat. no. 85 The Whitworth Art Gallery (The Whitworth, The University of Manchester) September 1984 December 1984
Hidden Burne-Jones, Works on paper by Edward Burne-Jones from Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 2007 cat. no. 4 pp. 40, 90 illus p. 48 Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery (Birmingham Museums Trust)
April 2007 July 2007
Hidden Burne-Jones, Works on paper by Edward Burne-Jones from Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 2007 - Leighton House cat. no. 4 pp. 40, 90 illus p. 48 Leighton House Museum
October 2007 January 2008
Parabola of Pre-Raphaelitism Tokyo Cat no 134 Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum
March 2019 June 2019
Parabola of Pre-Raphaelitism Kurume Cat no 134 Kurume City Art Museum
June 2019 September 2019
Parabola of Pre-Raphaelitism Osaka Cat no 134 Abeno Harukas Art Museum, Osaka
October 2019 December 2019
Title Author/Editor Year Page No. & Illustrations Attachments
Sir Edward Burne-Jones: A Record and Review, 4th edition, 1898 Malcolm Bell 1898
p.75
Burne-Jones, Fortunée de Lisle Fortunée de Lisle 1904
p.33
City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery: Catalogue of the Permanent Collection of Drawings in Pen, Pencil, Charcoal, and Chalk, etc., Including Cartoons for Stained Glass. Compiled by A. E. Whitley. Derby and Birmingham. 1939 A E Whitley 1939
p.146
Burne-Jones's Stained Glass Designs Martin Harrison 1973
p.62-65
Burne-Jones William Waters, Martin Harrison 1973
p.31
The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle, 2 vols (1974 & 1975 - Catalogue) Albert Charles (A. C.) Sewter 1974
vol I figs. 23-26; vol II p. 3
William Morris: A Life for Our Time Fiona MacCarthy 1994
pp. 51-52, 173
The Journal of Stained Glass Vol XXIX 2005 D Schoenherr Addenda to The "Cartoon Book" and Morris & Company's sale of Burne-Jones's cartoons in 1901-1904 pp. 240-241 Douglas E Schoenherr 2005
p. 110
Hidden Burne-Jones, Works on paper by Edward Burne-Jones from Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Professor Elisa Korb, Tessa Sidey, John Christian 2007
cat. no. 4 pp. 40, 90 illus p. 48 nd p. 90 (detail), B976n p. 90
Art as Lived Religion: Edward Burne-Jones as Painter, Priest, Pilgrim, and Monk Colette Michelle Crossman 2007
The Last Pre-Raphaelite, Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination Fiona MacCarthy 2011
Illus pl. XXII between pp. 358-359 and pls. 3, 13, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33 and in the text pp. 71, 180, 235, 181, 192, 203, 238, 256, 268, 329, 330, 371, 387, 425, 499, 466 pp. 1-17, 21-66, 68-72, 75-118, 120-122, 124-132, 134-141, 143-145, 147-150, 153-154, 156-170, 172-177, 179-203, 205, 207-214, 216-219, 220-232, 234-242, 244-255, 257-262, 264-279, 281-307, 309-317, 319-321, 323-350, 355, 357-358, 360-361, 363-392, 395, 398-400, 402-403, 405-416, 418-445, 451-461, 464-472, 478-481, 483, 485, 487-489, 491-498, 500-501, 504-518, 522-523, 525-530, 534, 536
Parabola of Pre-Raphaelitism: Turner, Ruskin, Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Morris Christopher Newall, Professor Joichiro Kawamura (The K Collection) 2019
Cat no 134 p 133 illus p 133


©2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
All images may be subject to copyright
TERMS & CONDITIONS. PRIVACY POLICY. COOKIE POLICY.