Holy Grail tapestries

The tapestries were commissioned from Morris & Co. by William Knox D'Arcy in 1890 for his dining room at Stanmore Hall,[1] outside London.

[2][3] Additional versions of the tapestries with minor variations were woven on commission by Morris & Co. over the next decade.

The six original tapestries illustrate the story of the Grail quest as told in Sir Thomas Malory's 1485 book Le Morte d'Arthur.

Like other Morris & Co. tapestries, the Holy Grail sequence was a group effort, with overall composition and figures designed by Edward Burne-Jones, heraldry by William Morris, and foreground florals and backgrounds by John Henry Dearle.

Morris & Co. wove a second subset of the narrative panels in 1895 and 1896 for the drawing room at Compton Hall, Lawrence Hodson's seat near Wolverhampton.