This design by May Morris was created for Morris & Co., probably around 1892. The design is called ‘Flower Garden’ and is for a pair of large embroidered portière (hangings) with a symetrical design of acanthus leaves, tulips, peonies, poppies, daffodils and iris with a central palmette motif. An inscription on the top reads “Summer is y-cumen in Loudly sing cucu”. This is taken from a medieval round or rota of the mid-13th century; it is also known variously as the Summer Canon and the Cuckoo Song. A finished version embroidered in silk thread on green silk damask is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1983.160a) as well as its pair with the next verse of the song: ‘Growth sed & blowth med & springeth wod nu” (1983.160b). These panels compliment another wider set of embroidered panels called Fruit Garden (designed before 1890) also in Boston (1893.160c & d). The four panels were commissoned by Mary Monroe Longyear of Marquette, Michagan, on 30 May 1892. The wider pair (Fruit Garden) cost £95 and the narrower pair (Flower Garden) £87. The panels hung either side of a reception room in Longyear’s home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
This design drawing was one of a number bequethed to the V&A by May Morris, and later transferred to the William Morris Gallery in 1954.
