Victorian Art & Design
Burne-Jones Stained Glass at Oxford

St Frideswide escapes from Oxford in a boat

Powell's Windows

Saint Frideswide was the patron saint of Oxford. She was an Anglo Saxon princess. She did not want to marry a pagan king so she escaped by boat and founded a nunnery at Binsey near Oxford. This is one of the sixteen scenes from her life in Burne-Jones's St Frideswide window in Oxford Cathedral.

© Picture from Ann  S. Dean's book 'Burne-Jones and William Morris'.

Burne-Jones designed this window for the glass firm, Powells. In 1857 Powells asked D.G. Rossetti to design windows for them . He suggested they should use Burne-Jones instead. In 1861 Burne-Jones became a partner in the firm of 'art decorators' set up by Morris and from then on he only designed windows for Morris.

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