Burne-Jones Bt. A.R.A, Sir Edward Coley (1833 – 1898) – Study for ‘The Nativity’ for St John’s Church, Torquay.

Burne-Jone's monumental paintings 'The King and the Shepherd' and 'The Nativity', made for St John's Church, Torquay are now in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. The paintings flanked the east window Burne-Jones had designed more than twenty years before and presented a rare opportunity for him to work on a large scale. He wrote that he wanted to work 'in public buildings and in choirs where they sing' (See Andrea Wolk Rager, The Radical Vision of Edward Burne-Jones, 2022, p.240). Further studies for this composition are in The New Art Gallery, Walsall (1973.013.GR) and The Whitworth, University of Manchester (D.1960.27).