Rossetti letter to Madox Brown 23 January 1869: Poor Ned's affairs have come to a smash altogether, and he and Topsy, after the most dreadful to-do, started for Rome suddenly, leaving the Greek damsel beating up the quarters of all his friends for him and howling like Cassandra. Georgie stayed behind. I hear to-day however that Top and Ned got no further than Dover, Ned being so dreadfully ill that they will probably have to return to London.
In January 1869 his wife Georgina found a letter from Maria in his clothing and Burne-Jones reluctantly ended the affair.
Nos. 109-112 [Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter] , together with a Day and Night now in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass., were painted as a set were painted for leyland about the time he moved to 49 Princes Gate (see no. 105 above [The Wine of Circe]). According to Lady Burne-Jones they were intended for his dining-room, but in 1892, the year of Leyland's death, they are recorded as hanging in the first of three interconnecting salons on the first floor, a room with a glass roof, furnished with divans, Indo-Portuguese cabinets and a harpsichord, and also containing pictures by Millais, Rossetti and Madox Brown. Posibly they were moved from the dining-room when Whistler transformed this into the famous Peacock Room in 1876-7. The Seasons are in the 'Aesthetic' taste of the time and, like so many items in this section, invite comparison with Albert Moore - in theme (Moore had exhibited a design of The Four Seasons at the RA in 1864), format, the deliberate colour scheme (Burne-Jones wrote of the series to Leyland, 'there is a plan throughout, of colour and expression and everything'), and the use of floral accessories. In fact three female figures by Moore hung on the landing outside the room which contains the Seasons in 1892. In adopting this style Burne-Jones may have been acting on the advice of Murray Marks, the dealer in works of art who was responsible for the décor at Princes Gate. The Poems beneath the figures are by William Morris.
Summer looked for long am I, Much shall change or ere I die. Prythee take it not amiss Though I weary thee with bliss. A poem appearing on a label attached to the base on which the figure stands, written specially for the painting by William Morris.