Jane Morris: An Enigmatic Muse
Posted on 08 January 2008
Jane Burden Morris, drawn by RossettiThe Pre-Raphaelite women generally fall into two categories: artist’s models (who were predominately wives, lovers, or in the case of Christina Rossetti, sisters of the artists) or Pre-Raphaelite women artists (Lizzie Siddal can be included in both categories). Jane Morris falls in the first category. Discovered by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, she was proclaimed by him to be a “Stunner”. She later married Rossetti’s close friend William Morris.
The tales of how the most famous Pre-Raphaelite models (Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth, Jane Morris) were discovered are now legendary. But for this post, let’s focus on the enigmatic Jane Burden Morris.
Jane as Queen Guinevere, painted by her husband William MorrisIn 1857, Rossetti and a small group of artists that included William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones were working in Oxford, painting the Union Murals. One night, they attended a show at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Seated in the gallery below were Jane Burden and her sister. Rossetti, struck by Jane’s appearance, asked her right away to pose for the murals. She did not show up, probably being wary of Rossetti’s proposal. But after seeing Burne-Jones a few days later (by chance) she agreed to model and Pre-Raphaelite star was born.
The Roseleaf, drawn by DGRJane posed mainly for Gabriel at first (his main model and muse, Lizzie Siddal, was away at the time). Gabriel was soon called away to join Lizzie, who had probably heard through the grapevine about Rossetti’s new model. Jane then began to sit for William Morris. Morris was a great admirer of Rossetti’s – he looked upon him as a mentor and it seems as if their friendship bordered upon hero worship.
La Donna Della Finestra, painted by RossettiMorris was quite interested in Arthurian legend and chivalry. He began to paint Jane as Queen Guenevere. It is said that while she posed for him, Morris had written on the back of the canvas “I cannot paint you, but I love you” — a shy, sweet, romantic gesture. By all accounts, Jane was probably in love with Rossetti from the beginning, but he was already betrothed to Siddal. So Jane found herself engaged and eventually married to William Morris.
The home of William and Jane Morris, The Red House, is famous for its architecture and for the collaborative efforts used to decorate it –decorations which led to the Arts and Crafts movement. Both William and Jane, as well as Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Elizabeth Siddal and others worked together painting murals, creating furniture, tapestries, and other artistic masterpieces.
Jane and William had two children, Jenny and May.
In later years, Jane would claim to have never loved her husband. In a Victorian marriage, should we really find this shocking? Her marriage may not have been born of love, but for a girl with no education and poor family, she made the only marital choice she could have.
Her affair with Dante Gabriel Rossetti after his wife died was famous. She began to pose for Rossetti again in 1865, which began a series of Rossetti masterpieces familiar to us all –he painted her repeatedly until his death. And but for his paintings, Jane Burden Morris might not even be of interest to us at all. She would merely be the quiet wife of William Morris.
But Rossetti captured something in those paintings. Was it her? Or some element in his own mind that her face inspired? We shall never know.
In viewing actual photographs of Jane, it is obvious that Rossetti glamorized her a great deal. I have to wonder how she felt about this. How did she feel when she saw a painted version of herself that held no resemblance to what she saw in the mirror? How did she feel about herself? Was she proud? Did she prefer the painted version? You may see it differently, but all of Rossetti’s paintings of Jane seem somber, enigmatic. She seems quiet and contemplative. A mystery. Perhaps she was a mystery even to Rossetti.
Jane Burden Morris.
Reverie, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti‘I cannot say that Rossetti’s presence was enlivening [in his later years]. My most representative recollection of him is of his sitting beside Mrs. Morris, who looked as if she had stepped out of any one of his pictures, both wrapped in a motionless silence as of a world where they would have no need of words. And silence, however poetically golden, was a sin in a poet whose voice in speech was so musical as his – hers I am sure I never heard.’
R.E. Francillon, Mid-Victorian Memories
For more on Jane Morris:
Portraits by Rossetti and photographs at the Liverpool Museum
And I’m so excted about this: POSSESSED, A musical about the life of Jane Morris!
20 responses to Jane Morris: An Enigmatic Muse
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I’d just like to recommend a book I have on Jane Morris. It’s called Jane Morris – The PreRaphaelite Model of Beauty by Debra N. Mancoff. It has many paintings and photos of Jane.
Incidentaly Stephanie, it’s great to see my favourite drawing of her above. ‘The Roseleaf’ is a little gem.
Jane Burden-Morris was probably the figure that really attracted me to Pre-Raphaelite art in the first place. I always thought she was so beautiful! Isn’t it interesting that Morris’ picture of Jane is actually quite a bit more realistic, while Rossetti’s are more idealized? Anyway, she’s certainly a haunting character, much like Lizzie Siddal. Great post!
Of the Pre-Raphaelite models, Jane Morris is my favorite, and “Proserpine” is my favorite of the paintings of her. She has an air of somber contemplation and I imagine it probably veiled a passionate inner life. This is a wonderful site; glad to have found it. d:)
[...] Jane Morris: An Enigmatic Muse [...]
I have to disagree that the photo above (at least) is less glamorous than her painted image by Rosetti. I know there are others that are less flattering, but she is mesmerizing in this black and white image in a Selma Hayek kind of way, not conventionally pretty, but stunning.
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/sa140n.jpg
I believe poor Janey Morris had fibromyalgia.
The excellent biography cited above, Jane Morris: the Pre-Raphaelite Model of Beauty, mentions her “…chronic and sometimes debilitating complaints that were to plague her for the rest of her life…recurrent backaches,, as well as unpredictable problems with digestion, drained her energy…her pain was genuine…excrutiating…” There is a cartoon of her desperately “taking the waters” at Bad Ems. Most of her photographs have that melancholic, angry yet hopeless look of someone abused by chronic unexplained pain, and often associated with other abuse at at much younger age. There is little information on her childhood. Does anyone know anything about that?
Oh my, it was a thrill to see the photo of Jane next to Rossetti’s painting of her in the same pose. I love comparing the actual person to the artist’s representation
[...] kvinnoporträtt. Utöver hustrun, som dog ung i en överdos av laudanum (opium löst i alkohol) och Jane Morris använde han framförallt modellerna Alexa Wilding och Fanny Cornforth. Både Alexa och Fanny satt [...]
Not sure how to say this without appearing completely mad as I have no explanation for this just a theory based on my own experience. The reason the painting does not bear an exact resemblance to the photo of Jane Morris as shown above could be due to Rossetti super imposing / projecting the girl of her dreams onto what he painted as Jane, whether it was Pandora or Prosperine.
As a teenager, I used to dream the same dream of a woman whose face I later discovered in the paintings by Rossetti of Jane Morris in The Day Dream and as Pandora. What is really strange is that I did meet my “dream girl”, someone who looked like the painting years later. Not to mention that I dare not tell her as she would most certainly think of me as a demented fool.
My theory is that the face I saw and perhaps dreamt by millions of other men folks including Rossetti is the face of an angel (if there is such a thing) only Rossetti being an artist was able to remember and paint her image.
Maybe all Angels have the same face or maybe all men dream of the same girl – not sure what I am trying to impart here or even if I am making sense.
I have no other plausible explanation; I suppose my hypothesis is only a rational attempt to make sense of my experience.
I feel great sympathy for Hussain’s dilemma – as a young post-graduate doing a Masters thesis on TS Eliot in the early 1990’s – I resided in Guildford street near Red Lion Square where William Morris and Jane Burden lived for a time – there I encoutered an intensively but disburbingly beautiful woman who appeared to me as a mixture of Sargeant’s Lady Agnew and Rosetti’s idealised Burden/ Morris- (I must add that I became possibly as obsessed with this latter-day avatar as Rosetti with Janey). Years later (1999) in an airport departure Lounge a book on the Pre-Raphaelites described a comtemporary observer commenting that Janey had a terrifying beauty which was certainly my peception of my Belle Dame Sans Merci – can anyone help with the source? It was a coffee table size book with RPB patterns on the cover.
Just a post script to the last entry – one evening in 1994 I came across Peter Ackroyd reading in the local pub – the Lamb on Lamb’s Conduit Street – for those who dont know Ackroyd is a London mystic who believes those in the present are haunted by the ghosts of London’s past – certainly the obsessive neuroticism of the Rosetti Morris liasion and the TS Eliot /Valerie Eliot relations seemed to influence my experience of the area – I also had the ghostly experience in the Birkbeck College Library of picking up a book in my reseach and it opening on exactly the page I needed with accompanying psychic frisson! This was a stone’s throw from Eliot’s famous Faber offices on Russel Square.
I certainly felt pleasantly and unpleasantly haunted by the ghosts fo the place. I also cannot but feel that Morris’s idealist revolutionary fervour also touched me!
I must agree with Hussein that Rosetti’s paintings of Janey capture something mythic and archetypal – angelic in his terms – perhaps a part of what Jung called the collective unconscious.
I was reading AS Byatt’s Possession at the time of my experiences, so I was very open to these influences – I want to write a novel on this London phase – a gothic blend of Byatt, Ian McEwan, Ackroyd and the Thomas Mann of Death in Venice.
Men have always been known for their chivalry. If they are treated well by women, they get treated better in return. If women want to be taken good care of by their men, they need to respect and treat their men with dignity.
The difference between what both painters perceive was really on what kind of stuuf they took. I think Rossetti was addicted with absyntho. This explain the whole matter.
It is interesting that with the exception of Liz Siddell, the pre raphaelite portraits often resemble each other to a greater degree than they do their models. There seems to be a common idealization. Along that line, any ideas yet on model or artist for Millais attributed work from James Julia Oct fine art auction? I’m counting on some sleuth to figure it out. I cannot seem to identify it, although the sensuous presentaion seems consistent with Rossetti moreso than Millais.
I loved the image of this beautiful woman so much that I downloaded it as my avatar on another, wholly unrelated website. Then I did some Googling and what I discovered knocked me for six. It appears that Jane and I are related through her mother. I still have to dig further to discover how closely, but as somebody pointed out, it all now smacks of incest…
Derek, what a fascinating story! How interesting that you were drawn to her, only to find out that you are related! Will you be studying your family tree?
I will try and do as much as I can, but the information available through general records (censuses, birth records etc.) is not as good from the time of her birth in 1839 as it would have been ten years later. The connection is through her mother who was born Ann Maizey – my Great Great Grandmother was Elizabeth Maizey. When I find out more, I will post on here.
Thanks to her marriage to William Morris, Jane Burden was given a comfortable middleclass life. Years later she repaid her husband trust and love by cuckolding him and making of him the laughing stock of Victorian London, not once, but twice; first with Morris’s closest friend, Gabriel Rossetti, and in middle age with Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, of all people.
The idealization of Jane by Rossetti was a sexual fantasy, and although she was unsophisticated, Rossetti portrayed her as wealthy, sexy, mysterious and an unobtainable muse. In reality, Jane was a calculating, cold, cheating wife, ungrateful and vain.
Sounds like you have an agenda Lewis. Care to share?
I too loved the image of Rossetti’s Jane, that dark sensuous woman captivated me.
The torrid affair of Mrs.Morris and Rossetti destroyed William Morris. We shall never know the reasons for Jane’s infidelity, but Morris was tormented by it to the point of contemplating suicide. This chapter of her life has intrigued me for a long time, this”manage a trois” I find contradictory and confusing. How can a man who loves his wife dearly allows her sexual romps under his very nose and with his complete acquiescence?