Burne-Jones was born in Birmingham and studied theology at Exeter College, Oxford, where he became a friend of William Morris. He studied under Rossetti, but developed his own style influenced by his travels in Italy.
Birmingham Muesum & Art Gallery has the largest collection of works by Burne-Jones in the world, including the massive watercolour Star of Bethlehem, commissioned for the Gallery in 1897.
In 1860 Burne-Jones married Georgiana MacDonald, one of the Macdonald sisters. Another sister married the artist Sir Edward Poynter, a further sister married the ironmaster Alfred Baldwin and was the mother of the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and yet another sister was the mother of Rudyard Kipling.