Inscribed on backboard with details of sitter & provenance: Portrait of Madeleine Wyndham at the age of 16 years old drawn by Edward Burne-Jones A.R.A., a wife of Charles Adeane of Babraham, married July 23rd 1888. This picture given to her mother the Honourable Mrs. Percy Wyndham of Clouds Wilts & 44 Belgrave Square London SW1 Xmas 1888, by Lady Burne-Jones and her daughter Margaret Mackail. Given by Madeleine Adeane to her son Robert Philip Wyndham ADEANE on his marriage June 14th 1929. Madeleine Pamela Constance Blanche Wyndham Daughter of the Hon Percy Seawen Wyndham at Clouds Wilts & 44 Belgrave Square London S.W. Also inscribed on paper headed 44 Belgrave Square: Given to me Margaret and Mrs. Burne-Jones Xmas 1888. Madeleine Wyndham was one of the five children of Mr. & Mrs. Percy Wyndham. This family was at the core of the Society coterie that formed in the 1880s, known as 'the Souls'. The Countess of Warwick wrote: this little coterie of `Souls' loved literature and art, and perhaps were more pagan than soulful.(1) Their circle was conspicuous among the British aristocracy for its intellect and culture. Burne-Jones was one of their chosen painters. He worked for many members of the group, including Arthur Balfour, Lady Windsor, Lady Horner, and the Wyndham Family. He was also invited to their country house parties. In their own words, he was an occasional Soul.(2) He seems to have been closest to the Wyndham Family, whose house, Clouds in Wiltshire, was designed by Philip Webb between 1881 and 1885 and decorated by Morris & Co. The Wyndhams also had a London house at 44 Belgrave Square. According to Lady Elcho, Burne-Jones's two children, Philip and Margaret, were like children of the house.(3) Jane Abdy & Charlotte Gere, authors of a study of the `Souls', describe Madeleine (d. 1941) as in many ways the unknown Wyndham.(5) Her shy personality was overshadowed by her two dynamic sisters, Mary (Lady Elcho) and Pamela (Mrs. Tennant). Nevertheless the three were known as the `Three Graces' of the Souls. On 23rd July 1888, Madeleine married Charles Adeane of Babraham in Cambridgeshire and moved away from the group. She appeared with her two married sisters in Sargent's famous portrait group, the Wyndham Sisters (1900 Metropolitan Museum, New York). There she appears as a polished Society Lady. In the present drawing Burne-Jones represents her as a tentative girl on the brink of womanhood. The gift of the drawing to her mother, so soon after her daughter's marriage, is particularly poignant. 1. Quoted, J. Abdy & Charlotte Gere, The Soul, (Sidgewick & Jackson, London 1984), page 11. 2. P. Fitzgerald, Edward Burne-Jones, a Biography, (Michael Joseph, London 1975), page 229. 3. J. Abdy & C. Gere, op.cit., page 87. 4. ibid, page 101.