The Annunciation

Edward Burne-Jones

Date: c. 1862

Materials: Brush with black and brown ink

This magnificent cartoon was apparently designed as a tile panel, but was adapted for stained glass, as the centre of the west rose window at St. Martin's, Scarborough, one of the Morris firm's early commissions.

Morris relied on his closest friend for the bulk of the firm's stained-glass cartoons, which Burne-Jones produced in great quantity; according to his wife Georgiana (whose features are clearly recognisable here as the Virgin Mary) , "his regular habit was to design and draw such things in the evening - the presence of friends making no difference".