Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
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Jesus College Chapel, 46 Jesus Lane, Cambridge CB5 8BWRecommended by
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Complete scheme in the Outer ChapelArtist, maker and date
Designed by Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown and made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co / Morris & Co, 1872-78Reason for highlighting
These renowned windows are some of the most successful to emerge from the collaboration between Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.
Artist/maker notes
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-98) was born in Birmingham and studied at Exeter College, Oxford where he met William Morris, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship. Together they created hundreds of stained glass windows that collectively stand as one of the finest artistic achievements of their time. The stature of this formidable artist and designer was recognised after his death when he became the first artist to be given a Memorial Service at Westminster Abbey.
Ford Madox Brown (1821-93) was a leading artist in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who designed over a hundred windows for the ‘Firm’.
Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (1861-75) or the ‘Firm’, as it was colloquially referred to, was founded in 1861 by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Philip Webb, Peter Paul Marshall and Charles J Faulkner. The Firm started out with no lack of confidence. As Rossetti wrote in January 1862, ‘Our stained glass…may challenge any other firm to approach it.’
Morris & Co. (1875-1940) was the successor to original business of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. William Morris had always been the driving force behind the Firm and he finally determined to remove his earlier partners and to take the business into his own hands, with Burne-Jones as principal designer. The business flourished and continued after Morris’s death, when it also continued to use Burne-Jones designs. It finally closed in 1940.
Sources:
For a brief overview of the two companies see Morris & Co on Wikipedia
The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination by Fiona McCarthy, Faber & Faber, 2011.
William Morris: A Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy (Faber & Faber, 1994)
Burne-Jones Special Issue, The Journal of Stained Glass, Vol. XXXV, 2011
Damozels & Deities Pre-Raphaelite Stained Glass 1870-1898 by William Waters and Alastair Carew-Cox (Seraphim Press Ltd, 2017)
Other comments
One aspect of the evolution in Burne-Jones’ approach can be seen in the windows dedicated to the virtues. In the earlier two windows in the north transept (one of which is shown opposite), the virtues trample on their associated vice in mediaeval fashion, while in the later windows in the nave the vices appear in the panels below.
The inner chapel windows were all designed by AWN Pugin and made by Hardman of Birmingham. All are still in place, except for two windows in the south wall, which unfortunately weathered badly. They were replaced in 1912 with windows to designs by Burne-Jones and made by Morris & Co.
Further details are on the College website The Stained Glass of Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge. The College has also produced a booklet (2024) on the windows, compiled by Emeritus Fellow Jean Bacon.
The College Library has a fabulous panel (1998) by Graham Jones, made by John Reyntiens. The library is not normally open to members of the public, but you can make an appointment by contacting the librarian.