SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES, BT., A.R.A., R.W.S. | Justice, Study for a Window at Calcutta Cathedral

Phillips, London, 15 May 1995, lot 93

Shepherd Gallery, New York, where purchased in 2001 by the present owner

Morris & Co were commissioned in 1874 by the Bishop of Calcutta, Robert Milman, to make ten designs for the west windows of St Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta to commemorate the death of Lord Mayo with Burne-Jones as the principal designer. It is thought that the commission followed a recommendation from John Lockwood Kipling, Burne-Jones’s brother-in-law.

The figure of a woman in armour, holding a crown and a sword symbolises 'Justice'. The design was reused several times, including windows at St Stephen's at Gateacre in Lancashire in 1883, the Albion Congregational Church in Ashton-Under-Lyne in 1893 and again for the church of St Andrew and St Paul in Montreal in 1903.