SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH, 1833-1898)

Justice was a subject Burne-Jones depicted many times in stained glass window designs for Marshall, Morris, Faulkner & Co. Often taking very different compositions and poses, he explored the subject in relation to those it would sit alongside. The present drawing is a study for the west windows of St Paul’s Cathedral, Kolkata.

Morris & Co. were commissioned in 1873 by the Bishop of Calcutta, Robert Milman, to design the west window of St Paul’s as a memorial to the 6th Earl Mayo, Viceroy of India, who died in 1872. It seems likely that Burne-Jones was recommended as the designer by his brother-in-law, John Lockwood Kipling, who was heavily involved in the world of art in India. A full-scale cartoon of the same figure, fully draped, was sold in these Rooms, 25 May 2023, lot 126.

This design for Justice, as a woman in armour holding a crown and a sword, was reused by Morris & Co. several times, including for windows at St Stephen's at Gateacre in Lancashire in 1883, the Albion Congregational Church in Ashton-Under-Lyne in 1893 and for the church of St Andrew and St Paul in Montreal in 1903.