In Ruskin's absence, Burne-Jones was the first witness called for the defence. Lady Burne-Jones says, in her Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, that on November 2, Ruskin had written to him:
"I gave your name to the blessed lawyer, as chief of men to whom they might refer for anything which, in their wisdom, they can't discern unaided concerning me."
She adds that for her husband: "Few positions could have been more annoying or difficult for the paragraph containing the sentence in question—one of Ruskin's severest condemnations—was practically a comparison between Mr. Whistler's work and Edward's own. But the subject covered so much wider ground than any personality that Edward was finally able to put this thought aside, and did with calmness what he had undertaken to do, namely—endorse Ruskin's criticism that good workmanship was essential to a good picture."
Walter Crane stated in his Reminiscences that he met Burne-Jones at dinner at Leyland's not long before the trial; and that then Burne-Jones would not see Whistler's merit as an artist. "He seemed to think there was only one right way of painting.... Under the circumstances he could hardly afford to allow any credit to Whistler."
In court Burne-Jones temporised. He admitted Whistler's art, but regretted the want of finish in Whistler's pictures; so strengthening the impression of the laziness, levity, or looseness of Whistler. In his "deliberate judgment" Mrs. Leyland's Blue and Silver was a work of art, but a very incomplete one. "It did not show the finish of a complete work of art," yet "it is masterly. Neither in composition, detail, nor form has the picture any quality whatever, but in colour it has a very fine quality.... Blue and Silver—Old, Battersea Bridge, in colour is even better than the other. It is more formless, it is bewildering in form. As to composition and detail, there is none whatever. It has no finish. I do not think Mr. Whistler intended it to be regarded as a finished picture."
Mr. Bowen: "Now, take the Nocturne in Black and Gold—The Falling Rocket, is that, in your opinion, a work of art?"
Burne-Jones: "No, I cannot say that it is. It is only one of a thousand failures that artists have made in their efforts to paint night."
Mr. Bowen: "Is that picture in your judgment worth two hundred guineas?"
Burne-Jones: "No, I cannot say it is, seeing how much careful work men do for much less. Mr. Whistler gave infinite promise at first, but I do not think he has fulfilled it. I think he has evaded the great difficulty of painting, and has not tested his powers by carrying it out. The difficulties in painting increase daily as the work progresses, and that is the reason why so many of us fail. We are none of us perfect. The danger is this, that if unfinished pictures become common, we shall arrive at a stage of mere manufacture and the art of the country will be degraded."
Mr. Frith, R.A., was next called. Truly, Ruskin found himself with strange supporters. Frith was chosen, we have been told, because Ruskin wanted some one who could not be thought biased in his favour.