Four panels: one inscribed u.l.: HAWARDEN/ No 1 Left of 4 lights/ 2/3 full size/ No1; further inscribed l.l.: The Nativity No 1; another inscribed u.l.: l.r.: HAWARDEN/ No 2 Left of 4 lights/ 2/3 full size/ No2; futher inscribed l.l.: The Nativity No 2; another inscribed u.l.: HAWARDEN/ No 3 Left of 4 lights/ 2/3 full size/ No3; further inscribed l.l.: The Nativity No 3; the other inscribed u.l.: HAWARDEN/ No 4 Left of 4 lights/ 2/3 full size/ No4; further inscribed l.l.: The Nativity No 4; bears an inscription l.r.: These 4 cartoons comprising The Nativity were designed and drawn/ by the late Sir Edward Burne Jones Bt for Messrs./ Morris & Company of Merton Abbey Surrey/ signed. Morris Company H Dearle (partner)/ April 2 1901 Sotheby's 2007
Fitzwilliam Account book 1898 June 30 To Hawarden design 150 (£) "In the autumn I designed a window for Hawarden, of the Nativity". (Edward Burne-Jones quoted by Georgina Burne-Jones in Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, 1904, pg. 317) The designs for the window at St. David's church in Hawarden were commissioned in the last year of Burne-Jones' life by the sons and daughters of William Gladstone and his wife to commemorate the long and harmonious marriage of their parents. The window presented Burne-Jones with a problem as 'the four main lights made anything but single figures a great difficulty.' (Ibid, pg. 317). Burne-Jones decided to treat the windows as one sub-divided scene as though viewed through a pierced portal, to the birth of Christ with the magi and shepherds in the flanks. 'The Increasing illness of Mr. Gladstone made his children anxious to have their windows set up in Hawarden Church, whilst he could still care anything about it; and Edward went down to Merton Abbey more than once to look at it while it was being made.' (ibid pg. 338). A letter from Burne-Jones to Frances Horner described one such visit to the glass works 'I heard on Friday from Mary Drew, so wanting the window, the Nativity window, which his children are giving as thanks-offering for that long, splendid life. I go to Merton Abbey with a heavy heart, to see it and watch it. I think it looks well, and in a fortnight will be set up. Since they want it I hope it can be in time, yet I marvel that anything seems to matter.' (ibid. pg. 338) 'With the strange, spiky forms of Burne-Jones's latest work and clear, cold blue and brown colouring, there is a concentration of all the lines on the Mother and Child, the last thing visible in Hawarden church today as the evening light fades. The old pattern-maker could still make a pattern.' (Penelope Fitzgerald, Edward Burne-Jones: A Biography, 1975, pg. 278) Sotheby's 2007
A design for this cartoon was included in the exhibition at The Municipal School of Art, Manchester, Oct - Dec 1905 ( Catalogue by Charles Rowley )