Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919)

Charles Fairfax Murray began his career in 1866 as Edward Burne-Jones's studio assistant, recommended by John Ruskin, and over the next five years would also work alongside Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. He made his first trip to Italy in November 1871, spending four months based in Pisa, copying Old Master paintings and deepening his knowledge. He returned to Italy in 1873, sent by Ruskin to make copies of the Botticelli frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and the door of the Baptistery at Pisa amongst other things. Ruskin employed him not only for his drawing skills, but for his connoisseurship, writing, '...I counted more on your scholarship than on your drawing from the first' - it was this scholarship which would form the backbone of Murray's later career as a dealer and advisor. The present drawings may well date from one of these early visits.