Kelmscott Manor relationship with its setting, especially its garden. The Manor is featured in Morris' work "News from Nowhere". It also appears in the background of "Water Willow", a portrait of his wife, Jane Morris, painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871. After William Morris's death in 1896, the Manor continued to be occupied by his widow, Jane Morris (who purchased it in 1913) and later, his daughters. May Morris died in 1938 and bequeathed the house to Oxford University, on the basis the contents were preserved and the public were granted access. The University were unwilling to preserve the house as
Alexa Wilding Alexa Wilding Alexa Wilding (born Alice Wilding, c. 1847 – 25 April 1884) was one of the favourite models of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, featuring in some of his finest paintings of the later 1860s and 1870s. She sat for more of his finished works than any other of his more well-known muses, including Elizabeth Siddall, Jane Morris and Fanny Cornforth. Comparatively little is known about Wilding, while Rossetti's other models, Siddall, Morris and Cornforth, are frequently written about. This is perhaps partly due to the lack of any romantic or sexual connection between the pair, which differentiates