William Morris Pre-Raphaelite Notebook

William Morris Woodpecker Tapestry 1877. This tapestry depicts a woodpecker against an ornate backdrop and was designed by Morris & Co in 1877. With most of the company's output being a collaborative effort involving several artists, the above tapestry is unusual in that it was one of the very few designed by William Morris in its entirety. It shows a woodpecker sitting in the branch of a fruit tree and features Morris's distinctive ornate background of leaves, reminiscent of Mille Fleurs, and his legendary attention to detail. The idea for the piece was inspired by the legend of Picus, an ancient Italian king turned into a woodpecker by the sorceress Circe because of her jealousy of the king's love for his wife, as recounted by Ovid in Metamorphoses.