Cartoon for 'Mermaid' woven fabric

This is the only repeating pattern designed by William Morris in collaboration with Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Burne-Jones's work record for 1875 lists his drawings of the two mermaids, which were incorporated in Morris's designs of scrolling foliage and flower-heads.

Although the fabric was never woven, both Morris and Burne-Jones made use of the design for other works; the background pattern became the 'Wreath' wallpaper of 1876 and the mermaid figures were adapted by Burne-Jones for both gesso panels and paintings in the 1880s. The uppermost of the two mermaids - holding two fishes - is a re-working of Burne-Jones's painting 'The Sea Nymph' (1878-1881). The design may have been intended to decorate the room in Burne-Jones's house at Rottingdean which he furnished as a tavern nicknamed 'The Merry Mermaid'.

Morris, like many Arts and Crafts practitioners, regularly worked collaboratively with colleagues, using his skill as a designer of botanical patterns to complement figurative work by others. For example, ‘Trellis’, the first wallpaper he designed in 1862, was created with Philip Webb, who supplied the depictions of birds.