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Lot 135

MORRIS (WILLIAM)

22 November 2011, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £2,812.50 inc. premium

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MORRIS (WILLIAM)

Autograph manuscript signed ("William Morris") of his verses entitled 'The Seasons', 16 lines in four quatrains, with divisional titles for 'Spring' ("Spring am I, too soft of heart..."), 'Summer' ("Summer looked for long am I..."), 'Autumn' ("Laden Autumn, here I stand..."), and 'Winter' ("Ah! Shall Winter mend your case?..."); with a number of corrections and a revision made currente calamo to the penultimate line of 'Winter', one page, written in black ink on a sheet of blue paper watermarked 1869, some weakness at folds, remains of guard, in overall in good condition, folio, [1869]

Footnotes

MORRIS VERSES FOR BURNE-JONES PAINTINGS: these verses were written to complement and embellish the eponymous paintings of 1869 by his lifelong friend, Edward Burne-Jones. The pictures, upright full-length personifications of the seasons, with Morris's lines inscribed in a cartouche at the foot of each figure, were painted for the Drawing Room, designed by Norman Shaw, at No. 49 Princess Gate, the house of the Liverpool shipping magnate Frederick Leyland, who had also commissioned Whistler's famous 'Peacock Room' (Burne-Jones's paintings are now in a private collection, and are illustrated by Christopher Wood, Burne-Jones, 1998, pp. 70-71).

The text of our manuscript in fact differs from that used by Burne-Jones: lines 3 and 4 of 'Autumn' are transposed, and the quatrain for 'Winter' is completely different but agrees with a version published in The Academy for 1 February 1871 (p.109). An expanded version entitled 'Verses for Pictures' with an extra stanza at beginning and end for 'Day' and 'Night' (figures added by Burne-Jones) was published in Morris's Poems by the Way (1891); where the text accords with that used by Burne-Jones.

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