As Morris & Company’s primary stained-glass designer, Burne-Jones drew this striking figure for a four-light window at Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge, installed between 1874 and 1877, where Noah appears with three other patriarchs—Adam, Enoch, and Abraham. Confident strokes of charcoal demonstrate the artist’s awareness that his design would be broken down into panels for the glass painters then rejoined using lead strips. Noah’s angular posture and broadly treated drapery recall the forms of twelfth-century English prototypes and were intended to sympathize with the chapel’s Norman architecture, then being restored.
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Inscription: Inscribed on back of wooden panel: "Derby College Nave" and "F. P. 143"
Morris & Company, to the following for £25 (Cartoon book, 108); Denham & Co., bought June 6, 1902; Vendor: Polly Alloway
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer," June 4–September 6, 1998.
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. "Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer," October 17, 1998–January 17, 1999.
Paris. Musée d'Orsay. "Edward Burne-Jones, 1833–1898," March 1–June 6, 1999.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy: British Art and Design," May 20–October 26, 2014.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Light and Tone: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints," May 18, 2023–September 5, 2023.
Malcolm Bell Edward Burne-Jones: A Record and Review. George Bell & Sons , and New York, 1892, Appendix II, List of Cartoons for Stained Glass Windows Designed by Mr. Burne-Jones, 1874; "Noah," for Jesus College, Cambridge, p. 116.
A. Charles Sewter The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle. New Haven and London, 1974, pp. 37-43, 48-50 (windows at Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge); fig. 428 (Four-light window with Noah, Cambridge); fig. 539 (Noah window, Brampton, Cumberland, 1878).
A. Charles Sewter The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle - A Catalogue. New Haven and London, 1975, pp. 43, 243, 309: Catalogue II: 1873-4: Jesus College, Cambridge, Nave S side, 2nd from West, no. 3: Noah (window, account book entry, Feb. 1, 1874); Check-list: 1874; Index of Subjects: Noah-g (1874 Noah window, and later repetitions).
Duncan Robinson, Stephen Wildman Morris & Company in Cambridge Ex. cat.: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, September 30 to November 16. 1980, pp. 39-43 (other Morris & Company designs for windows at Jesus College Chapel).
Douglas E. Schoenherr "The 'Cartoon' Book and Morris & Company's sale of Burne-Jones's cartoons in 1901–1904" Journal of Stained Glass. vol. 29, 2005, pp. 107-108 (same subject; possibly the same work).
Morris & Company's Stained Glass for the Chapel of Cheadle Royal Hospital, From Designs by William Morris & Edward Burne-Jones. Haslam & Whiteway, 2008, p. 17, fig. 13 (1909 Noah window), ill.
John Christian "Painter-designer or Designer-Painter?" The Journal of Stained Glass: Burne-Jones Special Issue. vol. 35, 2011, pp. 18-42 (overview, MMA work not mentioned).
Fiona MacCarthy "'As good work as I do': Burne-Jones and Stained Glass" The Journal of Stained Glass: Burne-Jones Special Issue. vol. 35, 2011, pp. 8-16 (general discussion, MMA work not mentioned).
Douglas E. Schoenherr "Edward Burne-Jones's Account Books with Morris & Company (1861–1900): an annotated edition" The Journal of Stained Glass. vol. 35, 2012, pp. 144, 212.
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