The Failure of Sir Gawain

These designs illustrate two of the six narrative panels in The Quest for the Holy Grail tapestries produced in 1890 by Morris & Co. The subject is taken from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the fifteenth century book about the legend of King Arthur. Along with the writings of Chaucer, this had been one of Morris's favorite medieval works. They were commissioned for the dining room of Stanmore Hall, the home of Australian mining engineer William Knox D'Arcy. To accompany Burne-Jones's six figure panels, Dearle designed an additional set of lower panels of greenery, containing narrative texts for the panels above. The upper panels were intended to hang just under the ceiling molding, so the figures were deliberately elongated to adjust to the viewing perspective. The completed tapestries were about fourteen feet high. The entire set took five years to weave, and additional sets were woven in 1895 and 1898.