Walter Crane R.W.S., 1845-1915

The Skeleton in Armour was commissioned by the well known American collector Miss Catherine Lorillard Wolfe as an important part of the interior decoration of the Scandinavian style house at Newport, Rhode Island, designed for her by Peabody and Stearns. Her house in Newport was one of the earliest "palace-cottages" built as summer retreats for wealthy New Yorkers and was called "Vinland", the Viking name given to America by its alleged original discoverers when they landed on the New England coast several hundred years before Columbus. Newport is particularly connected with this story because of its mysterious stone Viking Tower which still stands.

The legend was developed by Longfellow in his ballad The Skeleton in Armour, the idea for which cam to him while riding on the sea shore at Newport after seeing the Tower.  Walter Crane was asked to take it as the theme for a frieze to decorate all four walls of the oak panelled dining room. The finished frieze entitled The Viking's Bride was exhibited at the Grosvenor gallery in 1883.