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Call Number:
MSS 45
Creator:
Burne-Jones, Edward Coley, 1833-1898
Title(s):
Edward Burne-Jones Letters to Cormell Price
Date:
1852-1862
Extent:
.42 linear feet
Classification:
Archives and Manuscripts
Abstract:
This collection comprises 16 items, including 15 letters from Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones and Cormell Price and 1 autograph envelope from Burne-Jones addressed to Price. The correspondence was written over the course of a decade, between 1852 and 1862. The letters are indicative of Burne-Jones and Price’s long and close friendship and are very affectionate and personal in nature. The letters are rich in detail, with Burne-Jones sharing news of mutual friends, his Oxford lessons, his social life and his artistic and literary endeavors.
Provenance:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund.
Conditions Governing Access:
The materials are open for research.
Conditions Governing Use:
The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Archives Department.
Biographical/Historical:
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898) was a British painter, illustrator and designer. Born in Birmingham in 1833, Ruskin studied at the Birmingham School of Art from 1848 to 1852, before going on to read theology at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1853. At Oxford, Burne-Jones was a key figure of what became known as the Birmingham Set, a group of Oxford students who hailed from Birmingham or who had, as Burne-Jones did, attended King Edward’s School, Birmingham. The group were hugely influential in Britain’s visual art scene in the mid-nineteenth century and its members Burne-Jones, William Morris and Charles Faulkner were founding members of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., a company manufacturing furnishings and decorative art, in 1861. Burne-Jones is closely associated with the later phase of the group known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The Pre-Raphaelites sought to reform British art through a return to honest simplicity and the use of luminous colors and literary themes. Burne-Jones deviated from the earlier Pre-Raphaelites in his alignment with the Aestheticism movement which burgeoned throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and which advocated for an appreciation of art’s aesthetic beauty for its own sake rather than for the social-political themes of its subject matter. Alongside other artists associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Burne-Jones was a contributor to the <title>Oxford and Cambridge Magazine.</title> Burne-Jones produced many artistic works, in a variety of media including stained glass, watercolors, oils, and tapestries. The recipient of the letters, Cormell Price (1835-1910), was one of Burne-Jones’s closest friends from their days at King Edward’s School, Birmingham. Price attended Oxford two years later than Burne-Jones and, as these letters demonstrate, his decision to apply was very much encouraged by his old school friend. Price studied medicine at the Radcliffe Infirmary under Henry W. Acland (an Oxford physician and close friend of John Ruskin) before going on to tutor the son of a Russian aristocratic, with whose family he travelled around Europe. After returning to Britain, Price went into teaching, becoming the Head of the Modern Side at Haileybury College and Headmaster of the United Services College at Westward Ho! where his nephew, Rudyard Kipling, would eventually become his pupil. Burne-Jones and Price met as schoolboys at King Edward’s School, Birmingham. The two remained very close friends throughout their lives which is evident from the affectionate correspondence present in this collection.
Scope and Content:
This collection comprises 16 items, including 15 letters from Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones and Cormell Price and 1 autograph envelope from Burne-Jones addressed to Price. The correspondence was written over the course of a decade, between 1852 and 1862. The letters are indicative of Burne-Jones and Price’s long and close friendship and are very affectionate and personal in nature. The letters are rich in detail, with Burne-Jones sharing news of mutual friends, his Oxford lessons, his social life and his artistic and literary endeavors. The collection gives an account of the early activities of what came to be known as “The Birmingham Set” and Burne-Jones’s letters frequently refer to many of the group’s members, including William Morris (often affectionately dubbed “Topsy”), William Fulton, Charles Faulkner, Richard Watson Dixon, Edwin Hatch and Harry MacDonald. The close friendship held between Burne-Jones, Price and the wider group is evident in a letter dated May 18th, 1856, in which Burne-Jones sketches for Price a heart surrounded by the names of their friends, including many members of the Birmingham Set. The early publishing and exhibition activities of the group are recounted in Burne-Jones’s letters. The first letter in the collection, dated January 24, 1852, describes Burne-Jones’s agitation to receive articles from Price and Charles Faulkner for a forthcoming publication, perhaps a precursor to <title>The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine.</title> Discussion of <title>The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine</title> also features prominently in the correspondence. In one letter (circa 1856 January), Burne-Jones instructs Price to send him a piece of writing for a forthcoming issue while also lamenting the scandal caused by the January issue’s article on the work of Charles Kingsley, a university professor, historian, social reformer, novelist and Church of England priest. The letter goes on to state that William Morris has passed editorship of the magazine on to William Fulford, which Burne-Jones remarks is a “great relief” to Morris. The post-university activities of the Birmingham Set are also presented in the correspondence. Burne-Jones’s letter of June 28, 1861, announces the foundation of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. by Burne-Jones, William Morris, P.P. Marshall, Ford Madox Brown, Philip Webb and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The letter describes the company’s products as "stained glass, furniture, jewelry, decorations and pictures" and notes that the organization has received many commissions in the short time since its inception. Also evident in the collection is Edward Burne-Jones and The Birmingham Set’s place within the wider literary and artistic circles of mid-nineteenth century Britain. The letters often demonstrate Burne-Jones’s connection and friendship with prominent figures of the era. For instance, in his letter dated January 24, 1852, Burne-Jones expounds, at great length, upon his love of the influential art critic, John Ruskin, and his delight in receiving a letter from Ruskin, an event which Burne-Jones claims has transformed him into “a reformed character.” Later letters reveal a closeness with a variety of artists, patrons and writers. Burne-Jones’s letter of June 21, 1861, provides a particularly detailed account of the lives of a variety of such figures. In it, Burne-Jones describes the stillborn birth of a child of Elizabeth Siddal and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the death of the Pre-Raphaelite art collector, Thomas Plint, the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the marriage of Valentine Cameron “Val” Prinsep. The letters abound with contemporary cultural references and accounts of major events in Victorian society. Burne-Jones expresses, at length, his deep love of the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who he describes as “save Shakespeare only […] the only guide worth following far to dream-land.” In the same letter, Burne-Jones warns Price that he should avoid seeing Chevalier Count George Jones’s “mangling” of Shakespeare and, in another, recommends the work of Edgar Allan Poe (see May 1 and October 29, 1853). The letters also give details about major public events, including the Tooley Street Fire in London and the Victorian superstitions surrounding the Great Comet of 1861 (see June 28, 1861). The collection chronicles some of the political and academic history of Oxford University in the early to mid-1850s. In a letter dated March 5, 1853, Burne-Jones describes the employment and promotions of various Oxford professors and chaplains and how they relate to the philosophical and ecclesiastical debates of the Oxford Movement. Later, in his encouragement of Price’s application to study at the university, Burne-Jones gives long descriptions about Oxford fellowships and scholarships and how to write “Oxford Latin” (see February 28, 1854). The long and close friendship between Burne-Jones and Price is reflected in the personal and quotidian events about which Burne-Jones writes to his friend. He sends Price a lengthy description of his infant son’s features and personality and the health and happiness of his family(see February 23, 1862). The letters are full of details and references to Burne-Jones’s father, aunt, friends, social life and the romantic exploits of his and Price’s mutual acquaintances. In one letter, he gives Price an hour-by-hour account of his holiday in the River Wye area. (see January 24, 1852).
Arrangement:
The letters are arranged chronologically.
Genre:
Correspondence
Subject Terms:
English poetry
Painters
Associated Places:
Great Britain
Associated People/Groups:
Burne-Jones, Edward Coley, 1833-1898
Dixon, Richard Watson, 1833-1900
Faulkner, Charles Joseph, 1833-1892
Macdonald, Henry James, 1835-1891
Morris, William, 1834-1896
Price, Cormell, approximately 1836-1910
University of Oxford
Finding Aid Title:
Edward Burne-Jones Letters to Cormell Price
Archival Object:
https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/resources/5895
Metadata Cloud URL:
https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/resources/5895?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1