William Morris – A short History
Page 2
17 Red Lion Square, London, where William Morris lived as a young man with his friend Edward Burne-Jones from 1856 to 1859. Their house was the left of the pair of houses seen in the picture.
In November of 1856 Morris and Burne-Jones moved to three unfurnished rooms on the first floor of 17 Red Lion Square. Morris occupied the small room at the rear of the building.
William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones
Dante Gabriel Rossetti had occupied the same rooms in the days of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Morris and Burne-Jones later designed – and had made – their own furniture for their lodgings. This endeavor presaged the two friends’ later collaborations.
Daniel Gabriel Rosetti
Shortly after they moved in Rossetti wrote: “Morris is rather doing the magnificent there, and is having some intensely medieval furniture made – tables and chairs like incubi and succubi. He and I have painted the back of a chair with figures and inscriptions in gules and vert and azure, and we are all three going to cover a cabinet with pictures.”
