Edward Burne-Jones designed the Sleeping Beauty tile series in 1863-4 for Myles Birket Foster’s house The Hill at Witley. The decoration of the house was one of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.’s first commissions. This pair (see C83a) of rejected, misfired tiles were perhaps intended for the overmantle at The Hill, however they remained in the personal collection of Lucy Orrinsmith who decorated them. A finished complete panel of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is in the V&A (CIRC.520-1953), it is similar to another panel of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in the William Morris Gallery’s collection (C75), also from The Hill.
The composition is similar to a later watercolour by Burne-Jones- the first painting of the very first series of the ‘Legend of the Briar Rose’ (another title for ‘Sleeping Beauty’) that he executed between 1871-73 (now in the Museo de Arte, Ponce, Puerto Rico).
