Major Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at Ashmolean Museum

The Fall of Lucifer is on loan from the private collection of Lord Lloyd Webber

The Ashmolean Museum's first major art exhibition centres on The Pre-Raphaelites and Italy.

It brings together over 140 paintings from the museum's collection of Pre-Raphaelite art, along with loans from public and private collections.

One of the highlights is The Fall of Lucifer by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, on loan from the private collection of Lord Lloyd Webber.

At 2.5 metres high it is the largest painting to feature in the exhibition.

"On one wall, there is a space of forty feet sheer down, where I mean to shoot Lucifer and his knights out of a glittering heaven," was how Burne-Jones described his original vision.

Colin Harrison, curator of the exhibition described the painting to BBC Oxford as it was being installed.

"Having just unpacked it, it is absolutely phenomenal. It's huge and it really is perfect for our double height gallery.

"It's a wonderful thing. You can just feel how moved Burne-Jones was.

"He never had before an opportunity to work on such a scale and he dreamt of doing something like this for much of his career."

It will be the first time that the paintings for his mosaics in the American Church in Rome have been shown together in the UK.

Naturalistic

The exhibition also features artwork by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Holman Hunt, who together with Burne-Jones, were members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which formed in 1848.

These avant-garde painters set out to reform art, rejecting the likes of Raphael and Michelangelo and the Mannerists that followed, seeking out a more naturalistic approach.

Burne-Jones' picture shows Lucifer and his reprobate angels' fall from Heaven

Many of their works were conceived in Oxford, whilst their most famous muse, Jane Burden, was born and grew up in the city.

The exhibition explores the artists' ongoing relationship with the early art and literature of Italy.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was the son of an Italian but never visited the country, whilst John Ruskin was one of Italy's most dedicated tourists.

The Pre-Raphaelites and Italy runs from 16 September to 5 December 2010.