1857 he made for Bradfield College the first of what was to be an
immense series of cartoons for stained glass. In 1858 he decorated a
cabinet with the "Prioress's Tale" from Chaucer, his first direct
illustration of the work of a poet whom he especially loved and who
inspired him with endless subjects. Thus early, therefore, we see the
artist busy in all the various fields in which he was to labour.

In the autumn of 1857 Burne-Jones joined in Rossetti's ill-fated scheme to
decorate theh walls of the Oxford Union. None of the painters had mastered
the technique of fresco, and their pictures had begun to peel from the
walls before they were completed. In 1859 Burne-Jones made his first
journey to Italy. He saw Florence, Pisa, Siena, Venice and other places,
and appears to have found the gentle and romantic Sienese more attractive
than any other school. Rossetti's influence still persisted; and its
impress is visible, more strongly perhaps than ever before, in the two
water-colours "Sidonia von Bork" and "Clara von Bork," painted in 1860.
These little masterpieces have a directness of execution rare with the
artist. In powerful characterization, combined with a decorative motive,
they rival Rossetti at his best. In June of this year Burne-Jones was
married to Miss Georgiana Macdonald, two of whose sisters were the wives of
Sir E. Poynter and Mr J.L. Kipling, and they settled in Bloomsbury. Five
years later he moved to Kensington Square, and shortly afterwards to the
Grange, Fulham, an old house with a garden, where he resided till his
death. In 1862 the artist and his wife accompanied Ruskin to Italy,
visiting Milan and Venice.

In 1864 he was elected an associate of the Society of Painters in
Water-Colours, and exhibited, among other works, "The Merciful Knight," the
first picture which fully revealed his ripened personality as an artist.
The next six years saw a series of fine water-colours at the same gallery;
but in 1870, owing to a misunderstanding, Burne-Jones resigned his
membership of the society. He was re-elected in 1886. During the next seven
years, 1870-1877, only two works of the painter's were exhibited. These
were two water-colours, shown at the Dudley Gallery in 1873, one of them
being the beautiful "Love among the Ruins," destroyed twenty years later by
a cleaner who supposed it to be an oil painting, but afterwards reproduced
in oils by the painter. This silent period was, however, one of unremitting
p