Pays de Lotophages, Djerba, Tunisia, 1926 (oil on canvas)

Long entitled 'Olive Trees', recent research discovered that the original title of this work translates from French as 'land of the lotus-eaters’; a land deriving from Homeric Greek mythology which has long been ascribed to the island of Djerba, where Odysseus and his men are stranded following a storm sent by Zeus. Direct association with mythological antiquity has, however, been avoided by Morris who depicts olive trees in an enclosed garden, rather than the traditional island lotus plant. The current work closely resembles Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun (1889) by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890).