Early in development for Fantasia in 1938, Disney briefly considered animating J.R.R. Tolkien's recently-published The Hobbit and setting it against parts of Wagner's Ring cycle. This was shelved, but the studio later returned to the idea of animating Tolkien's work (1/5)

In the early 70s Disney artist Frank Thomas wrote a brief story analysis and Vance Gerry produced some studies for Bilbo (only a couple are signed, but I believe that all the drawings in this thread are Gerry's) (2/5)

It's probably best the studio didn't invest much effort into the project: Tolkien expressed "a heartfelt loathing" for anything and everything Disney, and one of his conditions for selling the film rights was "to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios" (3/5)

Tolkien remarks in one letter that, while he acknowledged Disney's talent in his particular field, and while his films had charming bits, he found them on the whole disgusting and personally nauseating (4/5)

Final set of what survives from Gerry's exploratory drawings for The Hobbit (5/5)