The artist’s largest work to date in oils, this triptych was
painted in 1860 for Saint Paul's Church, Brighton
(1846-48), an early work of the mature Gothic Revival designed
by Richard Cromwell Carpenter (1812-1855). In response to crit-
icism in the Ecclesiologist magazine that the high altar lacked a
proper focus, the architect George Frederick Bodley (1827-
1907), already on friendly terms with Morris and his circle,
"unselfishly suggested that the church should have a painted
altarpiece instead of a reredos, which he himself had been
asked to design, and that Edward [Burne-Jones] should be the
artist employed." 1 The work must have been well under way by
the summer of 1860, as it was commended by J. R Seddon at a
meeting of the Ecclesiological Society on June 11. 2 On its com-
pletion, however, the artist "found that the composition of the
centre panel was too elaborate to tell its story clearly from a
distance." 3 He therefore decided to paint a second version,
simplifying the composition of the Adoration by removing the
female attendants and the shepherds and raising the kings to
a standing position on the right; it was installed in 1861 and
remained in place until 1975. 4

The original triptych was accepted by the executors of the
Leeds collector Thomas Plint, who had died suddenly in 1862,
leaving a number of artists (Rossetti was among them) to make
good advances of money for work not yet completed. After
then passing through several hands, it fortuitously attracted
the attention of Bodley, who bought it in 1867 for £50 from a
man "who had no idea but that it was an old Italian picture." 5
It does indeed have the appearance of an early Renaissance
"goldback" - in this case, literally - emphasized by the figures
of the Magi in stark profile, as if they were donor portraits. The
Virgin Mary and the first king are clearly representations of
Jane and William Morris; the shepherd with the bagpipes
has the features of the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1837-1909), with Burne-Jones himself behind him. The
model for the king in armour was identified by Georgiana
Burne-Jones as a handsome Italian organ-grinder named
Ciamelli.

Burne-Jones must have had in his mind Rossetti s similar
triptych altarpiece The Seed of David, begun in 1858 as a
commission, through Seddon, for Llandaff Cathedral (in
which Morris figures as King David), but would also have
been familiar with Renaissance models seen in Italy in 1859.
Again a Venetian influence pervades the central Adoration -
the king in armour carries echoes of Carpaccio - although the
wings, with their curtained backgrounds and floral decoration,
recall such Florentine treatments as the celebrated Annunciation
(ca. 1440-ca. 1452) of Fra Angelico in the Convent of San
Marco. 6 Denoting the gradual development of an individual
style, this eclectic combination is less evident in the second
version of the triptych, where there is a greater consistency of
scale and an intimate atmosphere between the wings and the
centerpiece.

1. Memorials, vol. I, p. 124.
2. As noted by Martin Harrison in Victoria and Albert Museum 1996,
p. 119.
3. Memorials, vol. I, p. 124.
4. After its appearance in the Arts Council exhibition of 1975-76 (no. 67),
the triptych was spurned by the church authorities and lent to the
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery before being sold at Sotheby's on
November 3, 1993 (lot 192, illus.); it is now in the collection of Lord
Lloyd-Webber.
5. Memorials, vol. I, p. 224. This is confirmed by an entry in William
Michael Rossetti's diary for January 16, 1867: "Jones ... says his triptych
of the Adoration of the Magi sold lately for £y at a sale of effects, since
when Bodley has re-purchased it for £50" (William M. Rossetti, comp.,
Rossetti Papers, 1862-1870 [London, 1903], p. 221).
6. See Parkinson 1975, pp. 322-23.

Oil on canvas, centre, 42 1/2 x 63/4 in. (109 x 156 cm);
wings, each 42 1/2 x 28 1/4 in. (109 x 73 cm.)

This triptych was originally commissioned for the Church of St Paul's, Brighton. It is one of the most important large-scale works from the early part of Burne-Jones's career. After it had been installed in St Paul's he decided that the central panel was too complicated and went on to paint a second version for the church. His handling of the Biblical story owes much to the paintings of the Italian Renaissance, particularly to nativity scenes by Fra Angelico and Tintoretto. He was also influenced by Rossetti, who was then working on a triptych for Llandaff Cathedral. Among those who modelled for the picture were William and Jane Morris, and the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Tate Gallery label, September 2004

The frame of Burne-Jones’s first large work in oils is similarly a compilation of Pre-Raphaelite elements, and its history raises the possibility that Burne-Jones selected the pattern under the direct guidance of [Madox] Brown, who was working almost simultaneously on a very similar frame of his own. The Adoration of the Kings and Shepherds, a triptych of separate panels with The Annunciation on the wings, is Burne-Jones’s first version of an altarpiece for a Gothic Revival church in Brighton. It was finished in 1861, but almost certainly not framed then, as Burne-Jones decided to paint a second, simplified version [13].

The first version of The Adoration … remained with Burne-Jones until 1862, when it was accepted by the executors of T.E. Plint, the Pre-Raphaelite patron, against money received by Burne-Jones from Plint. It was presumably framed at that point, rather than in 1867 when it was bought by G.F. Bodley, the architect and a friend of Burne-Jones. The frames of the three panels of this first version are almost certainly original; they are of the right age, and the varnish, which is bound in a series of glazes to the paintings, also covers the frames [14]. Their structure is remarkably similar to the deeply bevelled reverse frame used by Ford Madox Brown on Lear & Cordelia, (a reverse frame projects the picture forward from the wall surface, which is particularly suitable for a work such as an altarpiece with a long viewpoint). Both Brown’s and Burne-Jones’s frames have four grooves cut longitudinally down each outer bevel, echoed by a smaller grooved bevel at the sight edge. Brown crowns his frame with the gilt ‘thumb-mark’ moulding, while Burne-Jones has a simple convex top edge; both have a series of small roundels or paterae set into the flat friezes [15].

The Frame Blog

Burne-Jones visited the cathedral in Siena in 1859, he may have been remembering the Duccio predella when he came to design a similar subject for the Brighton triptych.