This striking three-light window, designed by Edward Burne-Jones in 1870, depicts the Old Testament story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the Three Holy Children, cast into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace (Daniel 3). Created for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., it belongs to the first great phase of Burne-Jones’s stained-glass work and survives as one of the finest pieces in the remarkable decorative programme at Middleton Cheney.

Description

Each light contains one of the three young men, shown standing unharmed amid swirling golden flames that fill and unify the entire composition. Burne-Jones dresses the figures in simple tunics of deep green and blue, their bodies rendered with the elongated elegance characteristic of his early mature style.

Their calm, contemplative expressions contrast dramatically with the animated fire surrounding them—a visual embodiment of divine protection.

The flames themselves are a hallmark of Burne-Jones’s design vocabulary in the 1860s–70s: flowing, ribbon-like forms that create an almost abstract ornamental field. The use of golden glass and subtle modelling produces a shifting luminosity that was widely admired by contemporary critics.

Iconographic Notes

According to the Book of Daniel, the Three Holy Children refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image and were cast into a blazing furnace, where they walked unharmed, protected by an angelic presence. Burne-Jones omits the angel, choosing instead to emphasise:

• the serene faith of the figures,

• the symbolic purity of their garments, and

• the miraculously contained fire, treated as a decorative but threatening environment.

Artistic Significance

This window demonstrates Burne-Jones’s transition from the more literal medievalising style of the early Firm towards the refined linearity and spiritualised calm that would define his later work. The strong rhythmic cohesion across the three lights reveals his exceptional ability to create unity within a multi-panel layout.

Middleton Cheney preserves several works by Burne-Jones and his colleagues; this window, however, is often singled out as one of the most visually powerful examples of his narrative stained glass.