Lea printed cotton

Details

Date: design registered 23 November 1883
Dimensions: 64.8 x 99.1
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: indigo discharge and block-printed
Catalogue number: F20
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

‘Eyebright’ was designed by William Morris in 1883. The pattern was achieved using the indigo-discharge process, whereby the cotton was dyed in indigo blue and the pattern then extracted and over printed. The small ‘net’ repeat is formed of white eyebright flowers and buttercups. The pattern was also available in blue, white and yellow weld, a natural dye derived from a flower. The pattern was initially intended to be used as a lining for Morris & Co.’s heavy wool curtains (two widths matched the width of a curtains) but was used as a furnishing fabric in its own right. May Morris claimed that Eyebright, and another pattern Borage ‘were small patterns intended for dress’, revealing Morris’s intention to expand the business beyond interior fabrics. A dress of Eyebright made around 1900 is in the The Art Gallery of Australia’s collection (996A38). This example was purchased directly from Morris & Co. in 1940 after the company closed.

Details

Date: design registered 27 February 1896
Dimensions: 80 x 77.4
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F15
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

‘Compton’ was previously thought to have been William Morris’s last design for a wallpaper (and adapted as a pattern for fabric). This was confirmed by May Morris in her ‘Collected Works of William Morris’. However, following Linda Parry’s research it is thought to have in fact been designed by Morris & Co.’s Chief Designer Henry Dearle. Morris and Co. redesigned the the residence of Laurence W. Hodson, Compton Hall near Wolverhampton in 1895-6, although Morris had a hand in some of the designs (this is confirmed in surviving letters), there is no evidence that he was sole designer for any of the house designs. Rather, he and Dearle worked together, sending designs back and forth and correcting each other’s work. The evidence to suggest this is in fact Dearle’s design, is further strengthened by its similarity to his other work, particularly ‘Leicester’ wallpaper.

Material: printed cotton

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