Collections : [Yale University -Yale Center for British Art]

"Dearest Oldie[?] So disappointed & sorry that[?] my reason against Friday is that I have a sitter that day, and shall be in extreme misery as I am always on these occasions - if Thursday would do as well for you I would […] - or today but if Tuesday is your only day be sure & come. Ever your loving Ned."

Burne-Jones is working on a "little head of Paolo in the Ducal Pal[ace]" for Ruskin and is anxious about the quality. (Fiona Macarthy has identified this to be a study from Veronese's Thanksgiving for the Victory of Lepanto in the Sala del Collegio. See Macarthy, The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 144.) Burne-Jones asks Ruskin to stay in Milan and not to visit "the mountain" (presumably the Alps). Burne-Jones describes his encounter with Gentile Bellini's painting of St. Mark (St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504-7) and his amazement over its detail: "it is quite as exact as a photograph, with colour besides." Burne-Jones writes of the restorations at St. Mark's: "all the R[ight] side is covered up and sealed off, it is so miserable." Burne-Jones worries that the Bellini painting soon "might be the only record of that 7th heaven." Burne-Jones ends his letter to Ruskin with, "Goodbye, of course Georgie [Georgiana Burne-Jones] who is madly in love with you sends love. We have endearing names for you which wild horses would not extort from us in confession. Ned. "

Burne-Jones writes that (John William) Inchbold has arrived, bringing Ruskin's letter. Burne-Jones remarks upon his copies made for Ruskin: "four rotten little sketches; one of a head in the Veronese Triumph at the Ducal Palace, one of the Bacchus head of Tintoret (as nearly original size as I could guess), one of St. Catherine, and one of the Harem or Marriage of Cana. They really are so far more faithful than those I did under your eye, for you frightened me, you did." Burne-Jones describes a trip to Torcello: "Cat [Georgiana] and I went early to Torcello and confided much poetic sentiment to each other." Despite their enjoyment, Burne-Jones writes of his and Georgiana's homesickness.

Burne-Jones writes in reply to a letter from Ruskin. He references a "Harry VIII," a nickname for a shared acquaintance who Georgiana Burne-Jones describes as "the boy." Burne-Jones writes that he has had a hard time seeing in the dark to make his copies for Ruskin. He has completed the "sketch of St. Sebastian" and states "today I make a sketch of the St. Catherine" (of Alexandria?). Burne-Jones and Georgiana are "longing" to be with Ruskin in Milan. "William started yesterday for Venice so we shall miss I fear unless we meet at Padua."

"My Blessed, Do maids dust your pictures - and if so do they treat you as I am treated? Every morning my engravings, pictures, all my treasures hanging on the wall look like this: [Pen-and-ink sketch of pictures hanging off-kilter on the wall]. Every evening I set them straight and look at them longingly like this: [Sketch of Burne-Jones reclining on a sofa with straightened pictures behind him on the wall]. And every morning again: [Sketch of Burne-Jones crouched below his pictures hanging in disarray.] Do they do that to you? Ever your old same, most ancient, Ned. My love to Joan - O what a dear priceless Joan - Joan to nurse me when I'm poorly -"

"Ho blessed one, I have just read the last Praeterita - it has been in the house a week - and it is the first time in my life that this has happened that I haven't instantly read Praeterita, Fors, or new book of thine - and it means that I am very down this winter and sad and flat - and old and tired. But it picked me up brightly, and I wish I had lived with you always - and that we had been monks - Joan & Georgie & Margaret monks too - painting books and being always let off divine service because of our skill in said painting. My dear there has been nothing in my life so sweet to look back upon as that journey to Milan twenty-five years ago - that was the best of my days, and can't be again.