Notable sales

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.