The unfinished embroidery on the bed board takes its design from a Burne-Jones watercolour of a female figure reclining with her left arm resting on a vase while she reaches out to a flower with her right arm.¹ An almost identical figure by Burne-Jones, which retains a painted face and arms, is inset in a large tapestry worked by Frances Horner, hanging above the fireplace in the Drawing Room at Mells.

In an undated letter (probably around 1891) from Burne-Jones to Frances Horner, he refers to a drawing that may be the present design:

Dearest Frances

Rooke tells me you want little figures in the spaces left in his bed quilt thing he has copied for you – so I have done a sort of Flora, amended from the original which may perhaps do – but it is only a guide for the outline & I dont know what colour the rest is – so dont bother about the colour, make it what you like that will go with the rest – its the first work I have done & I am still as weak as can be, but perhaps it is good enough for the purpose . . . I wonder if the figure will do – Rooke drew the space out but on such nasty coloured paper that it was discouraging to work but I dare say it will do my dear . . .²