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The original “Adoration of the Magi” tapestry was designed by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Henri Dearle and woven by Morris and Company at Merton Abbey, near London in 1901. It is on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Merton tapestries are done on a high warp loom and are comparatively coarse in texture from 10-16 ribs to the inch. William Morris founded Merton in 1881. He had more influence on the industrial arts than any other man at the turn of the century. The extraordinary thing about William Morris’s revival of the art of tapestry weaving as practiced in the sixteenth century is that he did it with his own hands. All other revivals of tapestry weaving imported trained workmen from centers of productions from Flanders to Paris to Italy. William Morris imported no workmen from abroad. He did not approve of their methods. He personally visited with Gobelins to see what the mechanism was really like, then studied the details of the craft in old French handbooks published before the Revolution. Henri Dearle started as an apprentice at Morris Tapestry Works and eventually ran the tapestry works.
This tapestry is hanging in Prayer Room.