In 1886 William Morris was asked by Exeter College, Oxford, to produce a tapestry for the college chapel. The request came from John Prideaux Lightfoot (1803-1887), who had been elected Rector of the college in 1854, when Morris and Burne-Jones were undergraduates. Thirty years later, he wished to have something designed by the now famous alumni, who had received Honorary Fellowships in 1883. That the sub- ject should be an Adoration of the Magi seems to have been Lightfoot s idea, as Morris's letter of September 6, 1886, indi- cates: "I do not think you need go further to look for a subject, since the one you suggest seems a very good one from every point of view, and especially would suit the genius of tapes- try completely; I feel sure that Burne Jones will agree with me in this." 1 A few days later, having inspected the proposed site on the wall of George Gilbert Scott's chapel, Morris announced, "We should be very pleased to undertake the work and would do our best to make it as splendid & complete as possible. I have spoken to Mr. Burne-Jones on the matter, and he highly approves of the scheme, and will be glad to design the subject." 2 The specific treatment of the biblical story of the three wise men derives from a medieval legend, the Kings of Cologne, in which Gaspar, King of Godolie, with Melchior, King of Tarsis, and Balthazar, King of Nubia, journey to Bethlehem, and afterward establish a church at Seville, in which all three are buried after their deaths. Their bodies are later removed to Cologne, and there a cathedral is built in their honor. Burne-Jones had already designed several Adoration sub- jects for stained glass, but all on quite a small scale. He may already have begun to work out the composition, in rough sketches such as the three now in the Cincinnati Art Museum and the series of designs in a sketchbook in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 3 before being given the welcome opportunity to work on the same subject as an independent painting on a large scale. Having succumbed to the persistence of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists by agreeing to be its Honorary President in 1885 and then paying a weeklong visit to his native city in October of that year, Burne-Jones was approached by the Corporation of Birmingham in 1887 to paint a major work for the new municipal Museum and Art Gallery. In taking up a commission of £2,000, he was able to propose the same Adoration subject under the title The Star of Bethlehem, to be executed in watercolor. The "Design for the tapestry for Exeter College Oxford," listed under 1888 in Burne-Jones s account book with Morris &c Company and for which he received £250, is presumably the watercolor (25 1/2 x 38 1/2 in.) formerly in the family collection. 4 From this must have been made the working cartoon, photo- graphically enlarged for use by the weavers, which survives in the Victoria and Albert Museum. 5 It includes only the figures and the manger of wattle and thatch, without the wooded background and the proliferation of flowers which John Henry Dearie could never resist. In this state it emphasizes Morris's comment, in a letter of November 11, 1887, to Lightfoot, that "Mr. Burne Jones thought it better to have as much picture space as possible so as to get the figures larger, in which view I quite agree." 6 The first weaving was well advanced in September 1888, when Morris told his daughter Jenny that he had just been to Hampton Court "to have a good look at the tapestries as we [are] about beginning the figure of the Virgin in our big tapestry." 7 It was completed in February 1890 and exhibited in the firms Oxford Street showrooms over Easter, before being delivered to Oxford. Morris charged the college £525, a price that was hardly realistic but one that he adhered to for a second version, made for the writer Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. The present version, the third, woven in 1894, was made for the Manchester calico printer William Simpson, who presented it to the City of Manchester. 8 The Adoration turned out to be the most popular of all the Merton Abbey tapestries, and seven more weavings followed, the last executed in 1907; there are examples at Eton College (1895), in the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (1901), in the State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (1902), and at the Castle Museum, Norwich (1906). 9 Although The Star of Bethlehem has the distinctively two- dimensional feel of a composition originating as a decorative design, Burne-Jones was able to use its immense size to increase the areas of space between and behind the figures, so as to give a greater sense of depth and atmosphere. There is also more rich- ness of detail than could be entertained in the tapestry, especial- ly in the elaborate costume given to the younger of the three kings: Melchior s surcoat has silver disks with emblematic figures of lions, centaurs, sphinxes, and birds, and in addition to a frieze of exotic dancing angels, the robe worn by Balthazar carries another variation on the artist's delightfully round type of ancient ship; the inscriptions were studied from genuine Kufic examples. In contrast, the older Gaspar wears a plain robe, only just reveal- ing a glimpse beneath of a border decorated with the image of Saint George and the Dragon. The balancing figure of Joseph allows a focus just offset from the center of the picture, a clever device which adds to the informality of the holy group, and to the poignancy of the moment, as described in the New Gallery Notes, when "the Child Jesus turns towards His Mother, but looks around at the figures, the childish fear being overcome by the divine nature." 10 The remodeling of the Christ Child is one of the major changes to the original design, Burne-Jones having apparently obtained an infant model, of whom he made a lively study in chalk. 11 He also made a series of individual studies of each of the figures, in colored chalks on brown paper, heightened with gold; seven of these are known, all dated 1887. 12 The picture, on the largest obtainable sheets of paper mounted on canvas, had to be painted in the garden studio at The Grange, Burne-Jones using a ladder to reach the topmost area: "And a tiring thing it is, physically, to do," he wrote, "up my steps and down, and from right to left. I have journeyed as many miles already as ever the kings travelled." 13 Finished in 1890, it was sent to the New Gallery in the spring of 1891, then to Birmingham, where it formed the centerpiece of a major loan exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite painting, which opened October 2 with an address by William Morris. F. G. Stephens and Holman Hunt were in the audience, but Burne-Jones himself seems not to have made the trip. 14 Viewers at both exhibitions were deeply impressed by this new icon of British religious art, not only for its sumptuous color and unusual gravitas, but also for its exceptionally spiritual quality. The crit- ic of the Art Journal was especially impressed by the angel — "this strange, radiant figure, resembling a statue from Chartres or Rheims, into which the glow of life [has] been infused"— and recognized Burne-Jones's "own peculiar vein of mysti- cism." 15 It is certainly the finest religious painting by an artist whose faith was of a personal, idiosyncratic kind. As Georgiana Burne-Jones later recalled: "To a young girl who, with the boldness of inexperience, asked him as she watched Edward Burne-Jones, Preliminary sketch for The Star of Bethlehem, ca. 1887. Penci, 8 x 12 3/4 in. (20.2 x 32.3 cm). Cincinnati Art Museum Edward Burne-Jones at work on The Star of Bethlehem, ca. 1889 him painting 'The Star of Bethlehem', whether he believed in it, he answered: It is too beautiful not to be true.'" 16 1. Morris, Letters, vol. 2b, i88j-i888 (1987), p. 572. 2. Ibid., p. 574. 3. Sketches in black chalk, each 8 x 13 in. (20.3 x 32.3 cm), Cincinnati Art Museum (1910.2-4); sketchbook, Victoria and Albert Museum, E. 9 -1955 (Victoria and Albert Museum 1996, no. M.127). 4. Sotheby's, November 3, 1993, lot 219. 5. Victoria and Albert Museum, E.5012-1919 (Victoria and Albert Museum 1996, no. M.128). 6. Morris, Letters, vol. 2b, 1885-1888 (1987), p. 711. 7. Ibid., p. 813. 8. "Mr. William Simpson has offered to present to Manchester a replica of the magnificent tapestry 'The Adoration of the Magi'" {Magazine of Art, November 1895, p. 39). Simpson was later Deputy Chairman of the School of Art Committee. 9. For further details of the versions, see Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 1981, p. 107, and Victoria and Albert Museum 1996, p. 293. 10. New Gallery Notes, 1891, p. 10. 11. Sold at Sotheby's, September 24, 1987, lot 528. 12. One of these, of Balthazar (13V2 x 6V2 in. [34.8 x 16.3 cm]), is in the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (33'i6); the other six (averag- ing 13 3 A x 7 in. [35 x 18 cm]) were sold at Sotheby's, November 3, 1993, lot 220, 13. Memorials, vol. 2, p. 209. 14. See Academy, October 10, 1891, p. 317. 15. Art Journal, June 1891, p. 185. An early encomium of praise for the pic- ture appeared in the Ruskinian magazine World-Literature for March 1892, in which Mrs. Alice Hyde Oxenham noted enthusiastically how "chance led my footsteps to Birmingham, and there, of all places — in grimy, smoky, manufacturing Birmingham — I found 'The Star of Bethlehem,' by Mr. Burne Jones. Here, and here alone, was what I sought. Colour, as of opals and sapphires and humming-bird's wings (the prevailing tone a bluish green, but shot through with indescribably lovely shades of rose and crim- son and faint purples); composition, perfect in restful harmony; and, above all, conception, without which all else is but as Dead Sea fruit." 16. Memorials, vol. 2, p. 209.