Jane Morris nee Burden Part I

Jane Morris is famous for being the wife and muse of the artist and socialist thinker William Morris...   She modelled for him and other Pre Raphaelite artists and she herself was a notable embroiderer. 

Jane was born in 1839 in Oxford and her parents were very poor.  Her father was a stableman and her Mother had worked as a domestic servant.  She and her sister had little education but she was an intelligent girl probably with aspirations to get more education and to "marry up." In 1857, she attended a theatre performance with her sister Bessie, and she attracted the attention of Morris and his friends...  

She was very beautiful but in an offbeat way, with a long face and beautiful heavy dark hair...

Morris asked her to model for him. Jane usually called Janey, was 18 and was likely to become a servant or shop assistant... but Morris fell in love with her.  The Artists were painting murals of Arthurian themes and Dante Gabriel Rossetti used Janey as a model for his Guinevere…  Morris asked her to pose for him for a painting called La Belle Iseult... and during that time he proposed to her.   Janey was not in love with Morris but she accepted his offer.  She liked and respected him and she was eager to educate and better herself.  She was quick to learn and Morris, who came from a well to do family, had her tutored so that she could fit in with middle class artistic society.  Janey was happy to do this, since she longed for an education.   She learned French and Italian and music, and became a talented pianist and was able to fit in quite well with her new husband's friends..

They married in 1859 and then moved out of Oxford. Morris was setting up a design firm which would produce beautiful things, for homes and artistic decorations.  Morris like the other Pre Raphaelites was in violent reaction to what they saw as the commercialised ugliness produced by British industrialised society.  Although he was interested in socialism, however Morris had to compromise in order to make a living and his firm was patronised mostly by the middle and upper classes who wanted prettier houses and furnishings. 

The young couple moved to Kent at first and then to London.  They had 2 daughters, Jane Alice (Jenny) and Mary (May) who both shared their parents' interest in the Arts and Crafts movement.  However Janey’s marriage while superficially happy was far from perfect.  After a few years, the Morrises bought a house, called Kelmscott Manor, in Oxfordshire and they moved there.  But William Morris went away to Iceland in 1871, leaving his wife behind and during that time, she fell in love with Gabriel Rossetti. 

Rossetti was more of a lady’s man then the shy serious Morris had ever been... And Janey found him more congenial as a friend and lover.  It is not certain when their relationship became a love affair but it lasted as a close and loving relationship for many years..