The design comes from a set of thirteen stained glass panels illustrating the story of Sir Tristram, which Burne-Jones designed for Morris and Company.
Carlo Giuliano was probably trained in the Castellani workshops in Rome before he accompanied Alessandro Castellani in about 1860 to London, where he established a manufactory at 13 Frith Street, Soho. He supplied a number of the leading retail jewellers in London, and in 1874 opened his own retail premises at 115 Piccadilly. His jewellery was much admired by the Pre-Raphaelite painters and their circle. He made jewels for Sir Edward Poynter (1836-1919) and Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), and lent a jewel to Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912).
Plate on page 29, Decoration and Furniture of Town Houses by Sir Robert William Edis F.S.A. 1881. showing Morris & Co side chair by Ford Madox Brown. He designed early Morris & Co furniture including a green painted bedroom suite for Morris’s own house in Kelmscott.
Trellis was Morris’s first attempt at designing a wallpaper. Its pattern is said to have been inspired by the gardens at Red House, which were organised on a medieval plan with square flowerbeds enclosed by wattle trellises for roses. The birds were drawn by Philip Webb.