Elijah in the Wilderness
Designer: Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
1883
Stained glass
1645 x 645 mm.
Birmingham Museum Trust
Elijah in the Wilderness is based on a design made in 1874 for a figure in the west window of St Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata (it is the right-hand figure in the fourth row from the top). The panel depicts Elijah in a strikingly majestic pose, receiving the ravens which have been sent to feed him (1 Kings 17, 2-16). The design was then, as so often, used for other windows, as many as seventeen times just during the artist's own lifetime (see Cooper 200). It was a favourite from the start, because it was shown at the 1883 Foreign Fair held in Boston, Mass., as an example of the skills of the Morris firm — information also given on the gallery label at the Tate's "Edward Burne-Jones" exhibition, 24 October 2018-24 February 2019.
Photograph by Jacqueline Banerjee, taken at the press view of the exhibition. The panel featured in Room 7, on Burne-Jones as a designer. Click here to see the review of the exhibition, and mouse over the text for other links.
