SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES A.R.A.
(1833 – 1898)
Portrait of Augusta Jones
Provenance
Private Collection
This remarkable red chalk drawing, which has been in a private collection for the last 40 years, was made by Burne-Jones in the mid-1860s. Augusta Jones was his favourite early model whom he described in his Memorials as ‘a noble looking girl’. She was the sister of Mary Sandys, the common-law wife of the painter Frederick Sandys (1829-
1904).
Perhaps the most well-known depiction of Augusta Jones is as Princess Sabra in The Princess in the Garden, painted in 1866, and now in the Musee d’Orsay, Paris. She also appears in Burne-Jones’s Astrologia (Private Collection) wearing the same billowing sleeves. A red chalk drawing (32 x 25cm) showing just her head in close-up has recently been acquired by the National Trust for Wightwick Manor (see Burlington Magazine, vol. CL111, April, 2011) ,and there is a further less finished drawing (180 x 230mm) in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.