This is one of five designs for book illustration that the Dalziel Brothers commissioned from Burne-Jones for their Bible Gallery. This was of the most ambitious religious publishing projects ever conceived. The design shows Noah being mocked by merrymakers on the eve of the Deluge. It was drawn on sections of end-grain boxwood bolted together to form a single surface. The next stage in the process would have been the cutting of the block. End-grain wood was used because it is possible to cut finer lines in it than in wood cut along the plank. It is thus possible to print better such fine details as the rays of the sun and the grass sprinkled with daisies. In the event, only one of Burne-Jones's designs was used, and it was not this one.