Original ornamentations for page 149 of William Morris's "The Odes of Horace" poem "To Venus". When the book was shown in the William Morris Centenary exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1996, John Nash stated "The culmination of Morris's italic, showing how far his study of Renaissance hands had born fruit - the only irritating mannerism remaining is the hairline curlicue in italic f. Although he finished the writing of all four books, on 183 pages, he never completely finished the decoration; this did not pr3event a few of the pages (principally the openings of three of the books) from being, with Burne-Jones and Fairfax Murray's help, among the most elaborate illumination schemes he ever carried out" . ( p 308 in accompanying catalogue) The book was exhibited at the first Arts and Crafts exhibition at the New Gallery in 1888, lent by Georgiana Burne-Jones part of catalogue number 146.