It's official: guitar legend Jimmy Page is one of the coolest people ever to walk around and breath. I say this because when the session, Yardbirds and Led Zepplin lucre really started rolling in back in the day, his "wild" rock-n-roll spending binges apparently went towards collecting guitars and--are you ready for this?--museum-quality Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts pieces. The latter fact came to light recently when former art student Sir James (he was awarded an OBE in 2005) decided to divest himself of some massive pieces of William Morris & Co. furniture and the 8-ft. by 24-ft. 7in. tapestry The Attainment: The Vision of the Holy Grail to Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Perceval.

The tapestry is one of a series of six commissioned by mining and oil magnate William Knox D'Arcy (1849-1917) for the dining room of Stanmore Hall, his mansion in Middlesex. All were designed by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and woven at the Merton Abbey workshop of Morris & Co. Holy Grail, the culminating panel, was far and away the most important and took over two years to weave. Its almost-200 sq. ft. are comprised of wool, mohair and silk, densely woven onto a cotton warp to the overall tune of, I'm guessing, roughly the weight of a plant-eating sauropod.

The weight issue is the reason Holy Grail is going up at auction. The tapestry can't be hung at Page's current home which, while spacious enough, contains wood paneled walls that won't support such mass. Part of Sotheby's in-progress "The Best of British - Design from the 19th and 20th Centuries" auction (Bond Street, London showroom), its pre-sale estimate is in the neighborhood of £1 million. A sum worthy of a Celebration Day, to my thinking.