Most of the items in this album of early copies after the Old Masters date from Burne-Jones's first visit to Italy, in the autumn of 1859. They were nearly all made in Florence, Pisa and Venice, and among the works recorded are pictures by Giotto, Uccello, Masaccio, Benozzo, Ghirlandaio, Botticello, Filippino Lippi, Simone Martini, Bellini, Carpaccio and Titian. The copies on the page exhibited (p. 3) show figures from the frescoes in the Campo Santo, Pisa, including (below) a group from The Last Judgment, then attributed to Orcagna. For a drawing showing the influence of the composition, The Triumph of Death, see no. 21.

Burne-Jones's interest in the early Italian old masters is typical of mid-nineteenth century taste. Like many connoisseurs and tourists, he was attracted by the apparently unselfconscious narrative of such artists as Gozzoli and Ghirlandaio, a quality he tried to recapture in his own work at this time (nos.18,59). Ruskin no doubt suggested certain artists he should look at, and some - Giotto, Orcagna in the Campo Santo, and Titian, for instance - he may have recommended for study in an attempt to wean Burne-Jones from what he had now come to see as the harmful influence of Rossetti. Burne-Jones, however, was clearly capable of using his eyes independently of Ruskin. Carpaccio and Botticelli were both artists Ruskin had not yet 'discovered'. The sketches after Botticelli are particularly interesting in view of Burne-Jones's later debt to this artist.

The Paintings, Graphic and Decorative Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833-1898 (1975-6)