She first came to the attention of Rossetti at a theatre in 1857, and he immediately pronounced her 'A Stunner.' He was very attracted to Jane, but felt himself to be under an obligation to Lizzie Siddal, whose health was already very poor. Jane was not a conventional beauty, but was highly attractive in a rather unconventional way. She was tall dark, and slim, with a very long neck, and heavy dark eyebrows. She had an air of mystery, and from the time Rossetti first saw her, presence. She had masses of hair, which was dark and wavy.

On Saturday 9th June 1860 she married William Morris, and they had two daughters, Jenny born in 1861, and May born in 1862. In 1860 the newly married Rossettis and Morrises spent a lot of time together. Following the death of Elizabeth Rossetti in 1861, Rossetti's infatuation with Jane gradually grew, and in 1865 he had a series of photographs taken of her in the garden of his house in Cheyne Walk. Many of these photographs survive, and give a striking impression of Jane Morris at the time. They show that there was a real basis in fact for Rossetti's stylised pictures of her. He painted her more than one hundred times. During the late 1860s the infatuation of Rossetti with Jane Morris grew, and it seems his love was returned. Rossetti and Jane spent April and May 1870 alone together in a cottage in Sussex. In 1871 Morris and Rossetti jointly took a lease on Kelmscott Manor, on the upper reaches of the Thames not far from Faringdon.

In July 1870, William Morris took Jane to Kelmscott, and left for Iceland, leaving her with Rossetti. Morris was a hot-tempered, energetic, and physically strong man. Why, we may ask did he connive with his much- loved wife in her affair with Rossetti? There are probably two main reasons for this odd state of affairs. Firstly that Morris felt that he was unable to make Jane happy. Secondly that as a socialist, and idealist, he did not feel that he owned Jane-she was not his chattel.

In 1872 James Buchanan's anonymous and rather cowardly attack on Rossettti's work 'The Fleshly School of Poetry,' appeared. Rossetti, who was always hyper-sensitive to criticism had a nervous breakdown, and attempted suicide. He then lived at Kelmscott for two years. Jane Morris stayed with him for two months in 1873. In 1874 Morris, unsurprisingly, refused to renew his share of the lease of the house. This meant that, given the social mores of the day, it was no longer acceptable for Jane to stay there with Rossetti.

Morris had at the time become close to Georgiana Burne-Jones, who was suffering in much the same way as he was, due to her husband's affair with Maria Zambaco. There is no suggestion that their friendship was other than platonic. At about this time Morris, Marshall, and Faulkener was closed down by Morris, and Rossetti was, as a partner, compensated with £1000. It would appear he gave this money to Jane. From 1875 to1876 Rossetti took a cottage near the Sussex coast, and Jane again stayed with him for four months.

In 1877 Rossetti had another nervous breakdown, and Jane broke with him. She had come to realise how tenuous was his grip on sanity, and the extent of his addiction to narcotics and alcohol. Also the elder daughter of the Morris's had become ill and this brought her anxious parents together. Letters between Jane and Rossetti continued, as did friendship. When a later lover of Jane, Wilfred Scawen Blunt asked about Rossetti, after his death she said 'If you had known him you would have loved him and he would have loved you - all who knew him were devoted to him. He was unlike all other men.'

Contemporary Views of Jane Morris.

W Graham Robertson - 'She looked like the Delphic Sybil and had to behave as such. She required an appropriate setting and was, perhaps, at her wonderful best in her own house standing against the grey river.'

Henry James - 'She haunts me still. A figure cut out of a missal-out of one of Rossetti's or Hunts pictures-to say this gives but a faint idea of her, because when such an image puts on flesh and blood, it is an apparition of fearful intensity. Its hard to say whether she's a grand synthesis of all the Pre-Raphaelite pictures ever made-or they are a 'keen analysis' of her-whether she's an original or a copy. In either case she is a wonder.'