Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/147

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THE LIFE OF
[1857

gentlemen who had kindly and liberally undertaken to decorate the new building, and expressing appreciation of the valuable works of art in course of completion." The names mentioned specially were those of Rossetti and Hughes, "with some of their friends." Later in term all the seven painters engaged on the work, together with Alexander Munro the sculptor, who was executing a relief in stone, from Rossetti's design, for the tympanum over the doorway, were elected honorary members, and a loan of ₤350 was sanctioned to meet the expense of the work. By the following spring six of the pictures had been completed: the seventh, Rossetti's own, "Sir Lancelot's Vision of the Sangrail," had been broken off when he was called to London by the dangerous illness of Miss Siddal, and was never resumed by him. Even in its unfinished condition it was by far the finest and most masterly of the series. "It belonged," says Sir Edward Burne-Jones, "to the best time and highest character of his work." In this design, Lancelot lay asleep against a well on the right hand of the picture: the Vision of the Grail carried by angels moved along opposite him; and in the centre, a phantom Guenevere stood with outstretched arms in front of an apple tree. The figures are perished quite beyond recognition: but a drawing made for that of the sleeping Lancelot is one of the earliest portraits of Burne-Jones. The other two pictures which Rossetti had designed had for subjects "Lancelot found in Guenevere's Chamber," and "The Three Knights of the Sangrail." A pen and ink sketch of the former, dated 1857, is in the possession of Mr. C.F. Murray. The small water-colour of the latter, painted several years afterwards and now in Mr. Heaton's collection, perhaps gives a better idea than anything else of the method used in the Union