Georgiana Burne-Jones recalled with affection her husband’s sense of fun which he felt as actual a necessity for as he did for food and air.. Gentle and lambent at times, wild enough and noisy at others, whimsical in words, ominous in silence whilst some swiftly-conceived Puck-like scheme of mischief took shape, carrying all things before it, compelling the least likely to join in it, always ending in the laugh that we remember, the cloud-scattering laugh!(1) "Dr Schwumpff" was a reoccurring joke between Burne-Jones and his confident Helen Mary Gaskell. An invented character or perhaps one whom Helen and Burne-Jones had met at a dinner party, Dr Schwumpff was an 'architect' through whom Burne-Jones commented upon fragments of Greek pottery and various other archeological finds in his personal letters to Helen. Schwumpff would have had much to say on this remarkable Larissa fragment! Burne-Jones jokes to Helen, also ironically referring to him as the unrivalled Schwumpff and the lamented Schwumpff. Schwumpff is reported to be ill! he teases in another letter. As with all of Burne-Jones’s jokes, Dr Schwumpff no doubt had a half seriousness about him, perhaps a parody of the corrupt German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890), a character renowned for his crude methods of excavation and looting of ancient treasures including the lost city of Troy.(2) (1) GB-J, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, Macmillan and Co, London 1904, volume I, page 19. (2) From a series of illustrated letters from Burne-Jones to Helen Mary Gaskell, 1833-1898