Sir Edward Burne-Jones was known as the greatest artist of the second phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. As a child, he lost his mother at birth and his father was so physically distressed over her death, he not able to show love towards his infant son, Edward. To make-up for his unhappy childhood, Edward turned to an imaginary world that would last throughout his life in his paintings.

While studying at Oxford, Edward was heading for the ministry when he met his lifelong friend and close associate, William Morris. Together they discovered the Pre-Raphaelites and both developed a fascination with Arthurian legend. Burne-Jones was always fascinated by mythology of the classics. The medieval and mystical elements he found in the Pre-Raphaelite paintings clearly appealed to him. He attempted to bring many of the medieval romantic themes back to life with his paintings.

In the early 1850's, Jones met his artistic hero, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who convinced him to change his path and devote his life to painting. Edward Burne-Jones became an agnostic, replacing religion with art.

Soon after changing his life's ambitions, he also changed his name "Jones" to "Burne-Jones" to differentiate himself from all the other Jones who painted.

Edward Burne-Jones shared many of the same concerns as other Pre-Raphaelites. He wanted to restore to art, the purity of form, stylization, and high moral tone of medieval painting and design. He was also prominent in the revival of medieval applied arts, led by his Oxford friend the poet and artist William Morris. For Morris's firm he designed stained-glass windows, mosaics, tapestries, and illustrating books.

By the 1870's Edward Burne-Jones a success within his small circle of rich patrons and friends but his reluctance to show his work publicly kept him virtually unknown to the general public. In 1877 when he was finally persuaded to exhibit some of his paintings, he became an overnight success and was regarded as one of the greatest living artists.

By the time of his sudden death, in 1898, Edward Coley Jones had been given the Legion of Honor, made a baronet, knighted in 1894, and a memorial exhibition of his work was held the year of his death. After that, his work was not seen again for 77 years. Victorian art was poorly regarded during most of the twentieth century and only recently has he taken his place in the history of art.