pencil, ink and watercolour on paper Archives

Details

Date: 1876
Dimensions: 102.3 x 82.5
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BlA454
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

‘Acanthus’ is the only design William Morris personally created for printed velveteen – a heavy, luxurious textured cotton fabric that became fashionable for furnishing in the 1880s. Morris was likely dissatisfied by the overly complicated finishing process of the textile, favouring fabrics that could be produced more simply. Nevertheless, Morris & Co. later went on to produce a range of block-printed velveteen fabrics (see William Morris Gallery F355) including ‘Acanthus’ and five other designs, four of which were designed by John Henry Dearle. The range also included ‘Wey’, designed by Morris in 1882-83, but originally intended for indigo-discharged cotton. The finished ‘Acanthus’ velveteen was produced in red (see William Morris Gallery F354), blue and yellow colourways.

Details

Date: 1875-1880
Dimensions: 52.5 x 35.5
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BLA480
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

Kidderminster carpets are made by hand weaving two or three fabric layers together to form a single thick, flat cloth. Morris & Co.’s Kidderminster carpets were woven by the Heckmondwicke Manufacturing Company and were available in two or three ply. This design for Wreath was a three ply carpet. Morris was dissatisfied with by Heckmondwicke’s attempts to transfer his designs on to point paper to prepare it for the loom so he did the work himself, later training his own staff to achieve the quality he desired.

Details

Date: 1913
Dimensions: 113 x 76
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A1396
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Credit notes: Gift of John Brandon Jones, 1997

The architect Halsey Ricardo (1854-1928) built 8 Addison Road, Kensington for Sir Ernest Debenham, the department store owner and his family. The house was elaborately decorated and includes work by Ernest Gimson, William Aumonier and E.S. Prior as well as extensive series of tiled fireplaces and surfaces by William De Morgan (with whom Ricardo had been in partnership). In March 1912, Ricardo asked George Jack to design and prepare cartoons for part of the mosaic decoration of the main hall of the house, and also to design the carved marble balustrade around the first floor gallery space. The following month Jack travelled to Italy with his friend Thomas Hamilton Crawford to make a study of Byzantine mosaics in preparation for the work. Jack’s final designs incorporates floral patterns of both Persian, Ottoman and Byzantine influence.

Details

Date: 1876
Dimensions: 167.6 x 91.4
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A31
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

A design for a tile panel composed of 66 earthenware tiles with painted underglaze decorated with a ‘drop’ design of foliage of Persian inspiration, in green and blue on a blue ground. This tile panel was designed by William Morris and produced by William De Morgan in 1876 and is one of six; one of which is WMG C176. They were commissioned by the banker, Edward Baring, for his bathroom at Membland Hall, north of Plymouth (now demolished).

William De Morgan had set up his pottery in Chelsea in 1872 and had already designed tile panels, and as many as 300 six inch tiles by 1877. The Membland Hall commission was to be the largest panel he had attempted. Each panel measures 1600mm x 915mm, and is made up of 66 six inch tiles. It was a remarkable achievement to have produced these large panels on such small premises.

The design for these panels is composed differently to Morris’s wallpaper designs of that period, having larger motifs and more free space. The wallpapers had smaller detail and denser patterning. The repeat design at the edges indicates that the panels were intended to be set close together so that the pattern could progress laterally.

The design for these tile panels appeared in the Morris firm’s stock-list as late as 1913. It is unlikely that Morris designed anything as large again.

Membland Hall was demolished in 1928 for its lead and fireplaces. The six panels appeared on the London market in 1972. They had been found in a cupboard at Membland Hall. Another tile of the six is on display at the V&A, London. A tile of this design is in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, Cologne (E04941) and was acquired in 1978.

Details

Date: 1888
Dimensions: 33.3 x 20.4
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: D294vi
Artist: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: WMG Purchase, 1963

This drawing is a preliminary small-scale finished drawing for an embroidered panel ‘The Orchard’. An article in the Century Guild’s publication ‘Hobby Horse’ Vol. 3 1888 refers to May Morris having just completed the finished embroidery as a pair of curtains. ‘The Orchard’ became one of May Morris’s most popular designs. The Day book of the embroidery section of Morris & Co. which runs from 1892 – 96 (now in the V&A Museum) lists five versions made in 1893 alone. The panels were made as portieres each taking about fourteen and a half weeks work and cost £48 when sold fully completed.

The finished embroideries included an inscription on scrolls across two panels (both panels identical in design) of a poem by William Morris ‘The Flowering Orchard’, specifically written for the silk embroidery and referred to in the 1888 Hobby Horse. The poem, as with several other verses he compiled for various tapestries/embroideries, was published in ‘Poems by the Way’ in 1891. The lines read:

‘Lo, silken my garden & silken my sky,
And silken the apple boughs hanging on high,
All wrought by the worm in the peasant carle’s cot
On the mulberry leafage when summer was hot.’
Another version showing a single panel is similarly inscribed with lines:
‘Lo waneth the summer, the apple boughs fade
Yet fair still my garden ‘twixt sunlight & shade’.

A finished version embroidered by Theodosia Middlemore in 1894 is on the Victoria & Albert Museum: Circ.206-1964.

Details

Date: c.1880
Dimensions: 71.1 x 35.6
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A209
Artist: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

This full-size drawing for an embroidered frieze was produced for Morris & Co. by Phillip Webb in around 1880. Webb was primarily an architect, notably designing Morris’s Red House, but was also a gifted draughtsman with a particular interest in the natural world. As a young boy, he studied the illustrations of Thomas Bewick, the influence of whom remained evident throughout Webb’s artistic output. William Morris would often ask Webb to draw the animals within his designs for wallpapers, tapestries and textiles, recognising his superior skill. See for example ‘Trellis’, Morris’s first wallpaper design (William Morris Gallery BLA472), and ‘The Forest’, a large tapestry woven at Merton Abbey in 1887, which also incorporates a peacock into its design alongside Morris’s swirling acanthus leaves. In the finished frieze (see William Morris Gallery F430), the peacock is surrounded by gleaming golden grape vines designed by Morris.

Details

Date: 1913
Dimensions: 26.2 x 17
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A564
Artist: Whall, Christopher Whitworth (1849 - 1924)
Credit notes: Gift of Christopher Whall, 1973

This design for a three light window was designed by Christopher Whall in 1913 for St Mary and All Souls Church, Whalley, Lancashire. It was created in memory of Harriette Sawyer the wife of H.W. Worsley-Taylor KC of Moreton; Worsley-Taylor was a judge. The design depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary and a child in the central panel with Gabriel holding a Lily on the left and an Angel holding a sceptre on the right.

Details

Date: 1887-1967
Dimensions: 13.5 x 19.8
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A672
Artist: Whall, Veronica (1887 - 1967)
Credit notes: Gift of Christopher Whall, 1973

This design for a three light window was designed by Veronica Whall. It depicts The Three Maries a the tomb of the Risen Christ.

Veronica Whall was the daughter of Christopher Whall, she began assisting her father in her early teens. In the 1900s she attended classes, including Edward Johnston’s in lettering and calligraphy, at the Central School of Arts & Crafts. With her brother, Hew Bernard Whall, she set up ‘The Stonebridge Press’ and illustrated a number of its hand printed publications. By the time of the First World War, Whall was one of her father’s principal assistants, becoming a partner in the firm Whall & Whall Ltd in 1922. After her father’s death in 1924, she carried on the work of the Whall studio, helped by her brother until her retirement in 1953. Among her most important commissions were windows for Carlisle and Leicester Cathedrals and the complete glazing scheme for King Arthur’s Hall.

Details

Date: 1921
Dimensions: 34.1 x 27.1
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A553
Artist: Whall, Christopher Whitworth (1849 - 1924)
Credit notes: Gift of Christopher Whall, 1973

This design for a five light window was an unexceuted design by Christopher Whall in 1921 for St. Leonard Church, Middleton, Lancashire. The first and fifth panel depict the story of Psalm 107 with small subject panels, where sailors go out to sea and are humbled by the power of a storm, they then call out to Jesus who calms the storm. The middle panel depict Jesus’ Ascension with Fides and Spes either side of Him. There is quarry glazing above and below.

Details

Date: 1920
Dimensions: 28.1 x 17
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A578
Artist: Whall, Christopher Whitworth (1849 - 1924)
Credit notes: Gift of Christopher Whall, 1973

This design for a three light window was designed by Christopher Whall in 1920 as a War memorial for St. Matthew Church, Pentrich, Derbyshire. It is in memory of Captain Bernard Ridley Winthrop Smith, 1st Scots Guards, who fell in action at Ypres in November 1914, at the age of 31. St Michael is in the centre, using no weapon but pointing to the banner of the Cross. In the side lights are St George and St Louis, the warrior saints of England and France.

Details

Date: c. 1880
Dimensions: 73.2 x 71
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BlA456
Attributed artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This design for an embroidered reversible table cover has clearly been used as a working drawing, intended to communicate the design and choice of colours to the artisan who would make up the piece. The swirling, symmetrical floral pattern and choice of earthy, natural hues are typical of the smaller pieces of embroidery sold by Morris & Co. for domestic decoration.

“At first glance, this design appears unfinished, but looking more closely you can see faint pencil markings underneath the coloured sections. The pencil markings have vertical and diagonal symmetry with the parts that are coloured in, in a mathematical pattern. The purpose of the design is to convey information to the maker. Therefore because of the symmetry, the composition is complete.”

Raizel Frankl-Slater, WMG Young Producer

Details

Date: 1949
Dimensions: 28.2 x 19.1
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A682
Designer: Whall, Veronica (1887 - 1967)
Credit notes: Presented by C. J. Whall, 1973

Stained glass window design by Veronica Whall for a two-light window in the Church of All Saints Blaby, Leicester. The windows depicts the Acts of Charity.

Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper

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