William Graham (1817–1885) was the son of a wealthy shipping merchant whose company, W. & J. Graham & Co., he later ran before entering Parliament as a Liberal member for Glasgow in 1865. Graham became a close friend and patron of Edward Burne-Jones as early as 1856, and the artist remained a devoted friend of the family after Graham’s death. Burne-Jones harboured a particular fondness for Graham’s fourth daughter, Frances Jane Graham (1854–1940). Seven years after Graham’s death, Burne-Jones wrote to Frances of her father’s ‘genius’ in his ‘perception and instinct for painting.’¹ Georgiana Burne-Jones noted that although Graham was a ‘keen man of business . . . simplicity and devotion of soul were as evident in him as in a cloistered monk. His face was like that of a saint and at times like one transfigured.’² Oliver Garrett has noted that Burne-Jones was a ‘reluctant portraitist’ who found it ‘difficult to express individual personality’ and therefore restricted himself to portraits of family and close friends, such as the Grahams.³ In 1879, Burne-Jones completed a portrait of Frances Graham (private collection) and the following year made a drawing of William Graham as a study for this portrait (private collection). In the present unfinished oil portrait, Burne-Jones puts aside all notions of an ideal form, presenting a somewhat stark and severe image of his friend and patron. The portrait, using a palette of dark blue against a murky bluish-grey background, reflects perhaps Graham’s already failing health, which lead to a prolonged illness before his eventual death in 1885.