Amazing Victorian Photos of Muse Jane Morris (1860s)

Jane Morris (née Jane Burden 1839 –  1914) was an English artists’ model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. Her father was a stableman and her mother a laundress, Jane Burden grew up in impoverished surroundings in Oxford.

She became a model and muse to the artists William Morris, whom she married  in 1859, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Although she married Morris, it was Dante Gabriel Rossetti who first spotted Jane at a performance at Drury Lane Theatre in 1857 and asked her if she would model for his paintings.

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Jane Morris, posed by Rossetti by John R Parsons, 1865 via

John Robert Parsons, under the direction of Rossetti, 1865
© V&A Images / Victoria and Albert Museum, London via

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Jane Morris, posed by Rossetti by John R Parsons, 1865 via

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Jane Morris, posed by Rossetti by John R Parsons, 1865 via