Ten years Burne-Jones's junior, George Howard combined wealth and social status (inheriting Castle Howard and its estates as the 9th Earl of Carlisle in 1889) with a passion for art. A good painter in his own right, remembered for his place in the Etruscan school alongside Frederic Leighton (1830 -1896) and Giovanni Costa (1827-1903), he reveled in the company of artists; the diary of his wife, Rosalind, records meetings in 1865 with G. F. Watts, Holman Hunt, Millais, and Val Prinsep (1838- 1904), who took him to see Burne-Jones on April 6. 1 Impressed by Prinsep 's new house in Holland Park Road, which he visited in 1866 with Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter, Howard commissioned its architect, Philip Webb, to build a mansion at 1 Palace Green, Kensington (now Kensington Palace Gardens), on a street that was to become known as Millionaires' Row. Upon its completion in 1872, William Morris was asked to furnish and decorate the house and Burne-Jones commissioned for a series of canvases in the din- ing room to form a frieze above panels of naturalistic ornament in silver and gold on a peacock-green background, with the dado carrying texts, lettered in gold, from The Earthly Paradise. 2 Burne-Jones began work immediately, but had completed little by 1876, when Walter Crane took over the commission. Crane generally followed Burne-Jones's designs, but he admitted allowing himself "considerable freedom, especially in the subjects not already commenced or carried far, though I endeavoured to preserve the spirit and feeling of the original designs." 3 In addition to providing his own version of The Procession (the canvas of which Burne-Jones had decided to keep), Crane's chief alteration to the cycle was to substitute a simplified subject, Psyche Passes Safely through the Shadowy Meads, for Burne-Jones s only half- suggested and somewhat stilted image of Psyche Drawing Water from the Dragons' Fountain. 4 Completed in 1881, the canvases were then subjected to quite substantial retouching by Burne-Jones, and not solely to make them harmonise with Morris & Company's decoration. "I hope Crane won't be hurt," he wrote, "[that] I have had to alter much — I think they were painted in too dry a medium, for some of the colour wipes off with a dry duster." 5 Morris himself reported to Rosalind Howard on November 4, 1881, that "Ned [Burne-Jones] has been doing a great deal to the dining room pictures &c very much improving them: so that the room will be light and pleasant after all, &c the pictures very beautiful." 6 1. Virginia Surtees, The Artist and the Autocrat: George and Rosalind Howard, Earl and Countess of Carlisle (Salisbury, 1988), p. 39. 2. "The wood-work . . . was at first entirely white; but this pigment was found to mar the effect of the paintings, and so it was replaced by the present colour" (Studio 1898, p. 10). "The room at first sight appears by no means gorgeous," this account noted, "nor even sumptuous — indeed, its momentary effect is somewhat austere; but as the eye lights on the frieze which surrounds it, the coffered ceiling with decorated beams above, and the panels of the dado below, rich in gold and silver, the whole appears to glow like a page of an illuminated missal" (ibid., p. 3). 3. Walter Crane, An Artist's Reminiscences (New York and London, 1907), quoted in Waters 1975, p. 340. 4. Burne-Jones's composition survives in a small watercolor sketch, part of the complete series of designs now at Birmingham (Art Services International 1995-96, no. 99). 5. Surtees, Artist and Autocrat, p. 131. 6. Morris, Letters, vol. 2a, 1881-1884 (1987), p. 75. 1. Cupid finding Psyche asleep by a fountain (Cupid discovering Psyche) Oil on canvas, 47 x 49 in. (119.$ x 124.5 cm ) 2. The King and other mourners, preceded by trumpeters, accompanying Psyche to the mountain, where she is to be abandoned to the monster, according to Apollo's oracle Oil on canvas, 47 x 128 in. (119. 5 x 525 cm) 3. Zephyrus bearing Psyche from the mountain to Cupids valley and the House of Gold; Psyche entering the house; Psyche asleep outside the house Oil on canvas, 47 x 49 in. (119.5 x 124.5 cm) 4. Psyche’s sisters visit her at Cupid's house; Psyche, unrobing, listens to the voice of Love invisible; Psyches sisters bidding her farewell after their second visit. Oil on canvas, 47 x 105 in. (119.5 x 266.7 cm) 5. Psyche, holding the lamp, gazes enraptured on the face of the sleeping Cupid; Psyche kneels, with arms held out in supplication, as Cupid flies away through the doorway Oil on canvas, 47 x 129 7/8 in. (119.5 x 550 cm) 6. Psyche gazes in despair at Cupid flying away into the night Oil on canvas, 48 1/4 x 9 in. (122.5 X 23 cm) 7. Cupid flying away from Psyche Oil on canvas, 47 x 9 1/4 in. (119. 5 x 25.5 cm 8. Psyche at the Shrine of Ceres; Psyche at the Shrine of Juno Oil on canvas, 47 x 49 in. (119.5 x 124.5 cm) 9. Psyche, sent by Venus with a casket to Proserpine, passes safely through the shadowy meads, disregarding the call for help from the shadowy men trying to load an ass, and the three old women weaving, who are sent to ensnare her. Oil on canvas, 47 x 49 in. (119. 5 x 124.5 cm) 10. Psyche giving the coin to the ferryman of the Styx; the dead man in the form of Psyches father rising from the water as Psyche is ferried across to Hades. Oil on canvas, 47 x 105 in. (119.5 x 266.7 cm) 11. Psyche receiving the casket back from Proserpine; Psyche, brought back to the Upper Regions by Charon, having opened the casket in the hope that the beauty it contained might become hers, lies unconscious on the ground; Cupid, warned by the Phoenix of Psyches danger, flies to her rescue. Oil on canvas, 46 7/8 x 72 in. (119 x 183 cm) 12. Psyche entering the portals of Olympus with Cupid, preceded by Mercury, is welcomed by the Gods, and is offered the cup of immortality by Hebe. Oil on canvas, 78 x 129 1/4 in. (198 X 328.8 cm)