pencil and watercolour on paper Archives

Details

Date: 1885
Dimensions: 115 x 89
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A38
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Pattern of red and white tulips on winding stems against a blue background of interweaving sprays of delicate flowers, stems and leaves on white ground. This design was drawn by Morris as a pattern for cotton and linen. A related working drawing for this design is also in the collection (BlA453) and is annotated with instructions to block cutters. The design for Medway was also reused for wallpaper called ‘Garden Tulip’. The original design for ‘Garden Tulip’ is in Birmingham City Art Gallery (Inv. no: 1941p412).

Details

Date: 1877
Dimensions: 46.5 x 26.2 sheet size
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BLA465
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

‘Swivel’ was one of William Morris’ first designs intended specifically for woven fabric. This fabric was initially produced by textile contractors employed by Morris & Co., as weaving required a level of skill and equipment not yet available to the firm prior to the establishment of the Merton Abbey textile workshop, though Morris & Co. also continued to employ a number of textile contractors well into the 20th century. Nevertheless, in the late 1870s Morris set about learning to weave himself, using this knowledge to inform his designs, which made full use of the idiosyncrasies of the process. Morris then set up looms to his own specification, allowing the weavers to reproduce his intricate designs more faithfully. Initially starting with one loom and employing a single French weaver at his premises at Queen Square, Morris eventually established a workshop with four hand-operated jacquard looms, worked by master weavers from Spitalfields, who then passed on their skills to younger employees, preserving their craft for future generations. William Morris used the term ‘damask’ to define the smoother, lightweight cotton and silk fabrics in the Morris & Co. catalogue, as opposed to ‘tapestry’, which referred to the heavier, woollen fabrics.

Details

Date: 11.02.1876
Dimensions: 81.3 x 65.1
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A39
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Despite Morris’s desire to create products using traditional handcrafts, he also designed carpets to be manufactured by machine. Morris’s machine-woven carpets were of a higher quality than other commercially available examples and were used in many fashionable homes. ‘Honeycomb’, one of five carpet designs registered in 1876, is a woven wool carpet that was manufactured by H.C. McCrea and later at Morris’s own premises at Merton Abbey. ‘Honeycomb’ is relatively unusual among Morris’s patterns in so boldly emphasising the underlying stucture of the design rather than the floral/foliage motifs. Any risk of too geometric a character is avoided, however, by the skilful interweaving of the willows and flower-heads with the hexagons, like plants growing against a masonry wall.

Details

Date: c.1910
Dimensions: 18 x 13.5
Object Type: watercolour
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W213a
Artist: Whall, Veronica (1887 - 1967)
Publisher: Stonebridge Press
Credit notes: Presented by C. J. Whall, 1973

Veronica Whall’s illustration for her 1912 edition of Peterkin in the Wood. Whall both wrote and illustrated the book, which was printed on handmade paper by her brother, Hew Whall. They published it through their joint imprint, the Stonebridge Press. The Story of Peterkin in the Wood follows two human children who join the fairy Peterkin for a day of adventures in an enchanted forest.

Details

Date: c. 1890
Dimensions: 84.7 x 62.1
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BLA471
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)

This is a working cartoon for ‘Helena’, a woven textile designed by John Henry Dearle for Morris & Co. in 1890, manufactured by Alexander Morton & Co. the following year. Cartoons were full-size working drawings which specified the design to be used by the weavers, guiding them as they constructed the pattern on a loom. The paper would commonly be pinned up directly behind the loom, allowing the weaver to look through the warp threads at the image behind. The designer, John Henry Dearle, began his long association with Morris & Co. as a teenager working in the firm’s London shop. He soon became a protégé of William Morris himself, training in stained glass before becoming a tapestry assistant. Dearle eventually became, alongside May Morris, one of the firm’s most respected embroidery and tapestry designers, taking over as Art Director following Morris’ death in 1896.

Details

Date: c. 1887
Dimensions: 99.1 x 68.6
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A29
Attributed artist: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

In reaction to the hyper-realistic three-dimensional designs popular in the nineteenth century, Morris & Co. produced patterns from multiple layers of flat, abstracted shapes. The green leaves in the foreground of this design rest on large white flowers, which in turn covers a layer of smaller white flowers against a dark blue background. Avon may have been one of John Henry Dearle’s first designs for printed cotton. He went on to become Morris & Co.’s chief designer. The pattern was produced as a printed cotton in blue (number 6737) and green (number 6562) colourways. In the finished fabric the background foliage was changed to ochre.

Details

Date: c. 1880s
Dimensions: 22.6 x 31.1
Object Type: watercolour
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: D294x
Artist: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1963

This watercolour by May Morris shows a bedroom at The Grange, Fulham- the family home of Edward and Georgiana Burne-Jones. The bedroom is their daughter Margaret’s. On the mantlepiece are candlesticks designed by Philip Webb (for same design see WMG objects: H2, L20&a) and lustre vases, probably by William De Morgan. A pair of candlesticks acquired from Edward Burne-Jones are in the V&A, possible the same as the ones depicted here.

Details

Date: 1922
Dimensions: 24 x 40
Object Type: watercolour
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BrW50
Artist: Rushbury, Henry George, Sir, 1889, 1968
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1935

This watercolur shows a view up the river Arno in Florence, with the church of San Miniato al Monte and the Forte Belvedere visible in the distance. Rushbury’s Italian tour began in Florence, Assisi, Siena and San Gimignano, providing a plethora of subjects for on-the-spot drawings as well as ideas for subsequent work. His wife Florence travelled with him as far as San Gimignano and then returned home, while Rushbury went to Orvieto with the artist Charles Cundall and then to Rome.

Other works in public collections which date from this 1922 trip are in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (‘From the Porto Rosso, Florence’, pen and wash 16 1/8 x 10 7/8 ins.); Leeds City Art Galleries (‘Siena’ watercolour 12 1/4 x 18 5/8 ins.) and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (‘Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome’ pencil and wash 12 3/4 x 18 7/8 ins.)

Details

Date: c. 1880
Dimensions: 41.1 x 28.9
Object Type: drawing
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: D163
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Credit notes: Mackmurdo Bequest, 1942

This monochrome study of a daisy flower head was drawn by Mackmurdo, most likely in the 1870s or 1880s. Mackmurdo frequently included flowers and other botanical forms in repeating patterns and furniture designs for the Century Guild. The irregular nature of the petals, as seen in the side view, imply the study was likely drawn by Mackmurdo from life. However, the stylised regular arrangement of the carpels, as seen in the top-down view, show traces of Mackmurdo’s distinctive style.

Material: pencil and watercolour on paper

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