Property from descendants of Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (lots 101-126)

Edward Burne-Jones and his wife Georgiana had a large, close family, who often provided inspiration for and were recipients of his work. Georgiana (née Macdonald), was one of four daughters of a Methodist minister. She first met Burne-Jones aged eleven, as he was a schoolfriend of her elder brother. She trained at the Government School of Design in South Kensington, chiefly to aid Burne-Jones in his career, and practised very little as an artist. Later in life she became increasingly independent and politically minded. The sisters were a remarkable family: Alice, the oldest, married John Lockwood Kipling in 1865, and was the mother of the author Rudyard Kipling. Agnes, the third daughter, married Sir Edward John Poynter, having met him through Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite circle. The fourth daughter, Louisa, married a Worcestershire ironmaster and was the mother of the prime minister Stanley Baldwin.

Georgiana and Edward had two children, Philip (1861-1926) and Margaret (1866-1953). Philip became an artist himself, and an example of his work is included in the present group (lot 123). Margaret married a Scottish academic, John Mackail, and their children were the novelists Denis Mackail and Angela Thirkell. Burne-Jones often made drawings for his children, and later his grandchildren, and many of these, as well as larger and more finished works, have remained in the family.