From November 1856 to September 1858 Burne-Jones and William Morris shared rooms in London at 17 Red Lion Square. "Topsy [Morris's nickname] has had some furniture (chairs and table) made after his own design; they are as beau- tiful as mediaeval work, and when we have painted designs of knights and ladies upon them they will be perfect marvels." 1 Nothing of this date ascribable to Burne-Jones has survived. The first significant piece of furniture known to have been decorated by him is a large wardrobe painted with scenes from Chaucer's "Prioress's Tale" (see cat. no. 43), which was given as a wedding present to the Morrises and installed in Jane's bed- room at Red House. 2 Shortly before his own marriage in June i860, Burne-Jones decorated a plain sideboard with scenes of medieval ladies feeding parrots, pigs, and fish — the Ladies and Animals cabinet, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum 3 — and followed that with the painting of an upright piano. It was natural that painted furniture would form an important part of the early work of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner &c Co., founded in April 1861, and a major early commission came from J. R Seddon (1827-1906) for the decorative panels on a drawings cabinet the architect had designed for his own use. 4 Bearing designs by Ford Madox Brown, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones illustrating the pleasures of King Rene of Anjou, it was one of the main exhibits in the Medieval Court at the International Exhibition of 1862, held in South Kensington. The firm displayed two other cabinets, one painted by Morris with scenes from the legend of Saint George, and this upright example, bearing a version of the Backgammon Players watercolor. 5 The con- structional design of both can be attributed to the architect Philip Webb, who may also have been responsible for the decorative pattern- work, although an entry in Burne-Jones's account book with the firm dating from January to April 1862, which probably applies to the Backgammon Players cabinet, may suggest that he executed some of the more elaborate designs: "Gold cabinet: woodwork £5 painting £10." 6 Painted furniture was a striking feature of the 1862 Medieval Court, which also includ- ed four important items designed by William Burges and a carved and painted bookcase by Richard Norman Shaw. 7 Despite recognizing its purpose as a complement to Pugin's origi- nal at the Great Exhibition of 1851, critics were divided between those who abhorred the idea of a Medieval Court at a modern industrial exhibition and others who appreci- ated the quality of workmanship shown by adherents to the Gothic Revival, which at that time para- doxically represented the avant-garde in British design. Thus, while the art critic of London Society could only won- der, "As we strolled into the court devoted to the exhibition of Messrs Morris &Co's mediaeval furniture, tapestries, &c., who could have believed that it represented manufactures of the 19th century?" the Parthenon welcomed a "return to the severer forms and manly thought of an earlier time." 8 The exhibition offered mixed fortunes to Morris: although the firm .was awarded a prize medal, and most of the exhibits sold — the Backgammon Players Cabinet, priced at 30 guineas, seems to have found a buyer — he realized that this kind of modern medievalism, which to another commen- tator showed how "Pre-Raphaelitism has descended from art to manufacture," 9 was something of a dead end for the firm, whose future lay in the development of workshop- oriented production of stained glass, wallpaper, and textiles. 1. Memorials, vol. i, p. 147. 2. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; reproduced in Victoria and Albert Museum 1996, p. 157. 3. Ibid., no. J.7. 4. Also in the Victoria and Albert Museum (ibid., no. J. 13); its history and decoration are described in a book- let, King Rene's Honeymoon Cabinet, published by Seddon in 1898. 5. For the Saint George Cabinet, again in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see Victoria and Albert Museum 1996, no. J. 18. 6. Account book with Morris 6c Company, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (transcript in the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery). Sewter (1974-75, vol. 2, p. 102) assumes that this reference is to be read with the next entry, "3 Panels for Seddon £9.10.0," but the prices are inappropriate, and Seddon's huge oak cabinet could hardly be called "gold." 7. Burges s furniture (and his patronage of the young Burne-Jones) is fully described in J. Mordaunt Crook, William Burges and the High Victorian Dream (London, 1981). For the Medieval Court, see Stephen Wildman, "The International Exhibition of 1862," in Whitworth Art Gallery 1984, pp. 124-47. 8. London Society 2 (1862), p. 106; Parthenon, October 4, 1862, p. 724. 9. Cassell's Illustrated Exhibitor (London, 1862), p. 53.
This early masterpiece of the Arts and Crafts Movement exemplifies the collaborative endeavors of William Morris and his circle to improve design standards. Morris believed that a return to the principles of medieval production, with fine artists creating functional objects, could help overcome the evils of industrialization. This cabinet, one of several in which Morris enlisted the participation of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, is an attempt to erase the distinction between the fine and the applied arts. The painting on leather with a punched background is itself a craftsman's medium. Although the cabinet is usually described as in the "medieval style," it is actually a vivid example of the ability of the Morris firm to convert the eclecticism that marked much of the art of the late nineteenth century into an original and modern style. Although Burne-Jones's painted figures are in medieval costume much of the decoration is equally Oriental in inspiration. Philip Webb's straightforward design, however, which boldly displays the casework skeleton on the exterior, anticipated the emphasis on structural elements that would inform the design revolution of the next century.
The entry in Burne Jones' account book (Fitzwilliam Museum) is corroborated by a list in a sketch book in the Victoria and Albert Museum E-1.1955, which includes in a list of works for 1862 "oil for cabinet MMF & Co".