Sketchbook containing figure studies including an écorché, sketches of horses and birds, landscapes, trees and musical instruments etc., copies of objects in the British Museum including engravings by Tommaso Finiguerra (1427-1464), decorative motifs from the Codex Aureus, and illustrations engraved by Baccio Baldini after Sandro Botticelli for the edition of Dante's Divine Comedy, published by Niccolo di Lorenzo della Magna, Florence, 1481. Also slight sketched of landscapes from paintings by Titian and Andrea Mantegna, a subject from a fresco attributed to Andrea Orcagna, and subjects from Greek vase paintings. Inscribed by the artist with colour notes etc. and 'E. Burne Jones. The Grange Northend, Fulham S W. Whoever finds this book & brings it to the above address shall be rewarded to his content.'
This sketchbook is the last of those containing copies in the V&A. It includes a number after Florentine fifteenth century engravings, made at the time when Burne-Jones was negotiating the sale of the 'Florentine Picture Chronicle' to Ruskin (see no. 354 [Hayward catalogue 1976]); and several of landscape backgrounds of pictures in the National Gallery - Mantegna's Agony in the Garden, Bellini's Death of St. Peter Martyr, and Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne. The sketchbook also contains a number of landscape studies made from nature. Two further copies of particular interest show two of the Goddesses in G F Watts's picture The Judgement of Paris, finished in 1874 and now at Buscot Park, Berks (pp.55-7). They are the only known copies after Watts by Burne-Jones, and the choice of this particular picture, one of Watts's most classical productions, is surely significant in the context of Burne-Jones's remark that 'it was Watts who compelled me to try and draw better'. In fact ultimately most of the copies in these sketchbooks are the result of this advice.