The recently bequeathed paintings to the Ashmolean Museum will be the main attractions of the new Pre-Raphaelite Gallery opening this month, writes SYLVIA VETTA

The first international art movement that originated in Britain, the Arts and Crafts Movement, started here in Oxford. William Morris, its founder, and Edward Burne-Jones were both undergraduates at Exeter College. They were inspired by the painters generally known as the Pre-Raphaelites whose work they saw in the High Street shop of local art dealer James Wyatt and at the home of Thomas Combe.

The artists' impact in the wider world was possibly less pervasive than Morris's ideas about craft and design but in terms of the development of British art in the 19th century they are giants.

Our countrymen and women are not known for celebrating our achievements in art, science or ideas and Oxford is at the heart of many of them. The Ashmolean Museum will be opening the refurbished gallery, The Pre-Raphaelites, on the museum's top floor this month and will be a reminder of these creative Victorians.

The star of the show will be the Burne-Jones painting that the Ashmolean has just acquired. The gift of the oil painting Music has been widely reported in the local and national press.

Colin Harrison, the Assistant Keeper of Western Art, wanted to correct the impression given by some of those reports.

"Jean Preston did indeed live in a terraced house in Oxford but she was well aware of what she owned," said Colin. "She was a regular supporter of the Ashmolean, often working as a Duty Friend on the front desk.

"Some years ago, she invited Timothy Wilson and me to look at the pictures she had inherited from her father, Kerrison Preston. He acquired this remarkable collection in the 1930s when Victorian artists were unfashionable. It was her wish that the Pre-Raphaelite pictures should come to the Ashmolean. Her family sold for £1.7m the two Fra Angelica panels that she had bought because she loved them, in California, in 1965. They have returned to Florence. The success of this sale enabled her heirs to fulfil her wish and offer the pre-eminent items in her collection in lieu of tax for the benefit of the Ashmolean."

Burne-Jones is my favourite artist among the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Working in oils made him ill and so the bulk of his legacy is in stained-glass and watercolour. You can see satined-glass windows by him in Christ Church Cathedral and Manchester College. This is the first major oil painting by the artist to come to the museum. Colin explained that Burne-Jones had just returned from Northern Italy and the gorgeous colours and background were inspired by what he had seen.

Jean Preston's legacy is the last in a series that has built up the Ashmolean's collection. Thomas Combe was the Pre-Raphaelites' first major patron. He made friends with John Everett Millais and Charles Collins when they were painting in Botley.

He was a shrewd businessman making his fortune from the sale of bibles. All of his collection, including the three paintings by Holman Hunt, Collins and Millais, that he hung as a triptych of faith, hope and charity, came to the Ashmolean. The religious content of the early art of Holman Hunt and other members of the Brotherhood coincided with Cardinal Newman's Oxford Movement. Combe also bought Holman Hunt's most celebrated picture, The Light of the World, which his widow presented to Keble College chapel.

The Pre-Raphaelites were also influenced by that Oxford advocate of the Gothic Revival, John Ruskin. There were intertwined personal relationships, too. Dante Gabriel Rossetti met Jane Burden, the wife of William Morris, at the Oxford Theatre in 1857. His drawing of her as Proserpine was bequeathed to the sitter and came to the Ashmolean in 1939 as part of a large bequest from her daughter, May Morris.

Rossetti painted Jane obsessively and became her lover. Less successful than the paintings of Jane Burden was his attempt at Italian fresco painting in the Oxford Union. Rossetti and his six followers, including Morris and Burne-Jones, failed to prepare the surface correctly so the Arthurian Legends faded into the distance like the mythological king himself.

Colin showed me the other major work from Miss Preston's bequest, Rossetti's Hamlet and Ophelia. Colin said: "During the 1850s and 1860s, Rossetti was preoccupied by Dante and Shakespeare and notably Hamlet and Macbeth. The watercolour from Miss Preston's collection depicts Ophelia in her oratory where Hamlet has sought her. She tries to return his letters while he gives voice to his doubts." Could a scene like this have happened between Rossetti and Jane Burden?

If your interest is aroused, join the Ashmolean's lunchtime gallery today to find out more about The Victorian Collector, or book a place on the afternoon lecture series, British Art and Design, with Colin Harrison: Oxford and the Pre-Raphaelites on May 15, and The Arts and Crafts Movement: Ernest Gimson and designs for living on May 22. Tickets are £5.

The new Pre-Raphaelite Gallery opens on April 21. The Ashmolean Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-5pm, and Sunday from noon till 5pm.