Burne-Jones worked with William Morris on decorative projects for more than thirty years. This early design represents March as a young woman carrying a ram, the zodiacal sign for Aries. She stands amid blooming crocuses and blackthorn and is serenaded by a song thrush. The drawing was used to create a painted panel, one of a series dedicated to the months in the Green Dining Room at the new South Kensington (now Victoria and Albert) Museum. The scheme helped to establish the reputation of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company, and the finished room was described in 1875 as “one of the pleasantest little picture-galleries in existence.”
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Title:The Month of March
Artist:Sir Edward Burne-Jones (British, Birmingham 1833–1898 Fulham)
Date:ca. 1866
Medium:Graphite
Dimensions:19 x 10-5/8 in. (48.3 x 27 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Anonymous Gift, 1942
Accession Number:42.147
Inscription: Inscribed at upper left corner in pencil: "C 8 11/16 /Jones 3 / March"
Anonymous Donor
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," April 14–July 13, 2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy: British Art and Design," May 20–October 26, 2014.
Josephine Lansing Allen "A Pre-Raphaelite drawing." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. vol. 1, no. 5, January 1943, in Notes (inside back cover), ill.
Anne Carlisle English Drawings: XIX Century. New York: Hyperion Press, 1950, cat. no. p. 99, ill.
Linda Parry William Morris. Published to coincide with the exhibition 9 May-1 September. Lonodn, 1996, Mentions that Burne-Jones's accounts record that he received 35 pounds for "7 SK cartoons.", p. 140.
Linda Parry "William Morris and the Green Dining Room." The Magazine Antiques. August 1996, pp. 204-5 discusses and illustrates a related drawing by Burne-Jones at Kelmscott Manor for Taurus as a figure in a snowy landscape (and the related panel in the Green Dining Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum)., p. 202 (illustrates related panel in Green Dining Room, V&A), ill.
Stephen Wildman, John Christian Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998, Not in exhibition. Burne-Jones's designs for the related panels in the Green Dining Room, South Kensington Museum are mentioned., p. 116.
Suzanne Fagence Cooper Pre-Raphaelite Art in the Victoria and Albert Museum. 2003, pl. 34 shows the related panel of Aries by Burne-Jones and Charles Fairfax Murray, in the Green Dining Room, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 43.
Sally-Anne Huxtable "Re-reading the Green Dining Room." in Rethinking the Interior, c. 1867–1896: Aestheticism in Arts and Crafts. Volume edited by Jason Edwards, Volume edited by Imogen Hart, Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, Vt., 2010, Describes related panel: "The third figures is Aries, a girl surrounded by pale pink blossom, standing by a gothic tomb in a springtime wood and clutching a statuette of the Ram." (MMA drawing not mentioned), p. 28.
Douglas E. Schoenherr "Annotated Checklist of Edward Burne-Jones's Designs for Morris & Company in Order of Entry in his Account Books–Addenda to "The Cartoon Book" and Morris & Comapny's Sale of Burne-Jones's Cartoons in 1901-1904." The Journal of Stained Glass: Burne-Jones Special Issue. vol. 35, 2011, Related work: "March" cartoon for tapestry, sold by M&C. in 1902 to E. H. Van Ingen of the large New York importing house of he same name for £35 (Cartoon Book, 126), pp. 239, 241.
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