Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood

Sweet Georgie…

Georgiana Burne-Jones, painted by her husband Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (their children can be seen in the background)

Georgiana MacDonald Burne-Jones (1840-1920)

Georgiana MacDonald came from a strict, God-fearing family.  Both her father and grandfather were Methodist ministers.  According to Jan Marsh in Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, reading the works of Shakespeare and attending the theater were forbidden and considered sinful in their family on the grounds of morality.  ‘Georgie’, as she was known, was the fifth out of eleven children.  Georgiana married Edward Burne-Jones.  Her sister Alice married Edward Poynter, a painter who eventually became Director of the National Gallery and, later, President of the Royal Academy.  But that is not all of the greatness that came of the MacDonald girls:  their sister Louisa gave birth to future Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and another sister, Alice, was the mother of Rudyard Kipling.

A synopsis of a recent book published about the MacDonald sisters says:”The MacDonald sisters started life in the lower-middle classes, denied the advantages of education and the expectation of social advancement. Yet, as wives and mothers, they connected a famous painter, a president of the Royal Academy, a prime minister, and the uncrowned poet laureate of the Empire.” (A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin, written by Judith Flanders)

Georgie had known Edward (known as “Ned”) since she was a child.  She adored him, looked up to him.  I think that, compared to her strict upbringing, Ned’s world of art was exciting for Georgie.  At the beginning of their engagement, Ned introduced Georgie to Rossetti, Millais, and William Morris.

“I wish it were possible to explain the impression made upon me as a young girl whose experience so far had been quite remote from art, by sudden and close intercourse with those to whom it was the breath of life.  The only approach I can make to describing it is by saying that I felt in the presence of a new religion.  Their love of beauty did not seem to me unbalanced, but as if it included the whole world.” –Georgiana on her introduction to the Pre-Raphaelite circle.

Georgie was known as sweet and kind. She and Ned had a long engagement, but once they married she was swept up in a world of art and creativity. She was particularly impressed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s wife, Lizzie Siddal. (Rossetti and Siddal married about the same time as Ned and Georgie). Many letters that Georgie wrote give us a great insight into Lizzie Siddal.   See Description of Lizzie, Death of a Daughter, and Reflection on the Death of Lizzie.

In later years, Ned was not a faithful husband to Georgie, having a widely knwon affair with Mary Zambaco which I will write about at a later date. (In the meantime, read this post). At the same time, Georgie had a touching, yet seemingly innocent, relationship with William Morris — while his own wife was famously carrying on with Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Georgie’s likeness can also  be seen in The Beggar Maid.  There will be more posts on Georgie in the coming week, so please check back with the Sisterhood!

Have you read her biography of her husband? Georgie was the focus of part of my research for my thesis, and I read the Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, cover to cover, and came away absolutely in love with Georgie. She often gets forgotten in all the hoopla around the “stunners”, but she was a stunner herself, in a very quiet way.

.About the Zambaco affair, I always found slightly hilarious — though of course sad as well — the image of Maria Zambaco threatening to throw herself into the Serpentine river, right in front of Robert Browning’s house. I always wondered what the great poet would have thought looking down at that from his window. Might the poignant scene have found its way into one of his poems?

I saw this portrait of Georgie at the home and studio of the Victorian artist Frederic Leighton. There is a likeness with the ‘beggar maid’ in the Cophetua picture. Also in Leigton’s studio is a gouache study of the beggar maid and for me that likeness is even more pronounced in the study.

Thanks for this great post! I know very little about Georgie, so this was a real treat!