Fitzwilliam work list 1872 A picture in oil of a man playing at an organ, for Howard: this is set into the organ at his house. This quite clearly specifies that this painting is of a man and not of St Cecilia and therefore the cataloging entry by Sotheby's is incorrect in it's identification otherwise, the facts are correct.
ST CECILIA signed with initials and dated EBJ MDCCCL[?] l.l., oil on canvas 114 by 127 cm.; 45 by 50 in. The present painting was made to decorate the organ which stood on the staircase landing of George and Rosalind Howard's house, No.1 Palace Green, overlooking Kensington Gardens. The house had been built by Philip Webb in 1869-70, and the Howard family moved in in February 1870. Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co were responsible for the internal decoration. Edward Burne-Jones, was a close friend of George Howard, and was indeed commissioned by Howard in 1872 to make a cycle of paintings on the theme of Cupid and Psyche for the dining-room of the house. The painting was therefore probably done sometime in the early 1870s, and it is possible that the peripheral areas of the composition were completed by assistants working for Morris's firm. Rosalind Howard is recorded as having described the painting as "lovely in colour, composition, [and] sentiment (Surtees, op.cit.,p.85) when first it was installed. PROVENANCE George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, to his death in 1911; Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle, to her death in 1921; Lady Aurea Macleod, youngest daughter of the above, until 1949; private collection EXHIBITED Newcastle upon Tyne, Laing Art Gallery, Pre-Raphaelites - Painters and Patrons in the North East, Oct 1989-Jan 1990, no.21 LITERATURE Dorothy Henley, Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle, 1959, p.45; Virginia Surtees, The Artist and the Autocrat, George and Rosalind Howard Earl and Countess of Carlisle, 1988, p.85.