Cartoon for Stained Glass Window: The Tapestry Weaver

Details

Date: 1862
Dimensions: 67.2 x 55.6
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A2
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

The cartoon was used in the trilobed window of the chancel of St. Michael and All Angels, at Lyndhurst, Hampshire – a window composed of seven lights and tracery; the general theme of the glass being ‘The New Jerusalem’. The window is a memorial to Vice-Admiral Robert Aitchison who died on 13th February, 1861, and Lucretia Catherine Aitchison who died on 17th July, 1866. (ills. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris & His Circle, Yale University Press, 1974 – 75, pl. 116 &117). (illus. Sewter, op. cit, pl. 117). The pattern work was designed and carried out by Philip Webb, and the window installed 1863.

The entries in Burne-Jones’ account book for this window are as follows:
dated 10 August 1862: “To trefoils in Lyndhurst window, £1 do £1 do. do”
dated 26 August 1862: “2 trefoils for Lyndhurst £2. Aug. 29. 1 do do £1. Sept. 10. 1 trefoil do £1.”
dated 27 November 1862: “Centre sexfoil Lyndhurst £2:10:0. Trefoil do. £1. Dec. 8 Large cartoon of 2 Angels for Lyndhurst £3:10:0. Dec. 10. do. do £3:10:0 Dec 9 Small angels on the walls 10s Dec 16 Angels for narrow lt. £2:10:0 Large cartoon for Maries £5. do do of Postles £5
dated 2 February 1863: “Angel & Wench for Lyndhurst £4:5:0, do & cove for do £4:5:0”

In addition to this angel, the cartoons for two other angels in the tracery: Angel with Cymbals (A1) and Angel with Lunette Dulcimner (A3) are also in Gallery’s collection, together with the cartoon for the Three Maries (BLA406).
The cartoon was used in the following places:
(1870) at Meole Brace, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire Holy Trinity: Apse left window, with three lights and tracery in upper left trefoil (illus. Sewter, op. cit. pl. 309)

Details

Date: c.1862
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and ink
Catalogue number: BLA409
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

William Morris designed this 3-tile figure for a fireplace at Sandroyd, Surrey, the house built by Philip Webb in 1861-62 for the artist Roddam Spencer Stanhope. Photographs taken before the later destruction of the firpace show the finished design was cut down and only the central section used, excluding parts of the foliage and branches on the side of this original design. The figure of Adam was accompanied by the figure of Eve next to it. Other tiles from this fireplace are also in the collection, see C175 Alceste and C214 Pomegranate tree with shield.

The Adam and Eve designs were also used for a stained glass window at All Saint’s church, Selsey, in 1862. The original drawings for these windows are very similar but were by Edward Burne-Jones (see Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery: 500’04; 501’04), it is possible Morris adapted Burne-Jones drawings for the tiles.

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: 1862
Dimensions: 63.5 x 70.5
Object Type: design
Material: black and sepia wash and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A262
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1955

This design for a stained glass panel shows King Arthur and Sir Lancelot. It was drawn by William Morris in 1862 and is the 13th panel in a 14 part series of panels illustrating ‘The Story of Tristam and Isoude’ from Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. The panels were commisioned by Walter Dunlop, a Bradford merchant for the decoration of the entrance hall at Harden Grange, Bingley, Yorkshire. The windows were removed from the house after Dunlop’s death and are now in the collection of Bradford City Art Gallery.

The figure of King Arthur has been drawn separately and pasted down.

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: 1885
Dimensions: 129.5 x 101.5
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 and red 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: 1886
Dimensions: 101.6 x 68.6
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A30
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

One of the more ‘formal’ of Morris’s 1880s wallpapers, ‘Lily and Pomegranate’ resembles some of the historic textiles which Morris studied at the South Kensington Museum. The dotted background is a favourite device of Morris’s , found in both his wallpapers and textiles, and one which he enjoyed painting in his designs. When a friend asked him why he did not hand over such mechanical work to an assistant, Morris replied ‘After taking all the trouble to draw it, do you think I’d be such a fool as not to do the dots?’

Details

Date: 1879
Dimensions: 18.2 x 46.5
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: BLA451
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

This design shows one half of the pattern for Dove and Rose, intended for a woven double cloth. The design is formed of leaves, stems, rose sprays, acorns and doves in green and red.

At Merton Abbey, Morris & Co.’s textile workshop, Morris had installed hand-operated jacquard looms, which partly automated the weaving process. Large orders were sub-contracted to companies that used steam-powered looms. Morris welcomed technological progress that genuinely saved repetitive labour without compromising the quality of the final product. He believed that “it is the allowing of machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays”.

To weave the ‘Dove and Rose’ textile, Morris’s original design was painted on point-paper. This was used to make a series of punch cards, which were fed into the loom and controlled the production of the pattern. Morris felt uneasy about subjecting his employees to the “deafening clatter” of the weaving shed, but accepted it as a necessary evil to produce fine fabrics in silk and wool.

Details

Date: 1864
Dimensions: 74.9 x 55.9
Object Type: design
Material: sepia wash and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A8
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

This design is for part of a large stained glass window in the church of All Saints, Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire. It shows Eve (the figure on the left) walking behind the Virgin Mary in a reference to the Christian doctrine that celebrates Mary as the redeemer of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden. The figures are set against rich foliage—typical of Morris’s talent for creating flat, decorative pattern, and small flowers are visible at their feet, perhaps inspired by Morris’s knowledge of millefleur motifs found in medieval tapestry. This design is a working drawing and is annotated with instructions, such as ‘R’ indicating the use of red glass for the inner layer of the Virgin’s robe.

Stained glass was one of William Morris’s first artistic pursuits and an important product in the early days of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., the interior decoration firm that Morris established in 1861. Morris leased premises at 8 Red Lion Square, London, and installed a kiln for firing glass and tiles in the basement. While Morris did not make the glass himself, preferring instead to order glass from more established companies such as James Powell & Sons, he breathed new life into the revival of historic stained glass techniques that was gathering pace in the nineteenth century. Key characteristics of Morris’s stained glass are an interest in simple forms reminiscent of medieval examples, the use of earthy, jewel-like colours, and the placement of pieces of coloured, ‘pot glass’ within a lead framework, creating patterns and images through a mosaic technique, as well as painting directly on to plain glass.

The cartoon was first designed by Morris for the chancel East window church of All Saints, Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire, erected in 1865. The cartoon of Eve and the Virgin was used only once again, at Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland, in the North Church (Old West Kirk) in 1865 for the window in the west gable. The window has 4 lights and tracery, with 3 tiers of subjects, Eve and the Virgin being used for a panel in the bottom tier at left. The window also used the cartoons of the Angel with cymbals and Angel with lunette dulcimer designed by Burne-Jones and originally used at Lyndhurst in Hampshire. The church was demolished in 1926 to make room for shipyard extensions, the glass being re-fitted in the new church in Campbell Street.

Details

Date: c.1880s
Dimensions: 66 x 69.2
Object Type: design
Material: sepia wash and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A43
Artist: Morris & Co.
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

This pencil design is for a carpet (see William Morris Gallery N17), possibly the first to be made at William Morris’s textile factory at Merton Abbey. The partial sketch demonstrates how Morris would build patterns by repeating sections, carefully illustrating only what was necessary to construct the full image. In the final piece, the central pattern is mirrored to create a symmetrical effect, whilst the surrounding borders feature curling plant stems and acanthus leaves.

In the late 1870s, Morris wrote to a friend, “I am studying birds now to see if I can’t get some of them into my next design”. A number of designs incorporating birds followed, including this energetic pair of squawking peacocks.

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: 1913
Dimensions: 720 x 620 mm (framed)
Object Type: design
Material: pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A1401
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Credit notes: Gift of John Brandon Jones, 1997

Details

Date: 1881
Dimensions: 97.5 x 57
Object Type: design
Material: ink and watercolour
Catalogue number: A240
Illustrator: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This large illustration is one of 17 (See A234-A242) used by William Morris to illustrate his lecture ‘Some Hints on Pattern Designing’ given at the Working Men’s College, London on 10 December 1881. The patterns derive mainly from plates illustrating similar motifs in the Egyption section of Owen Jones ‘Grammer of Ornament’. This particulalar illustration is a close copy of a similar motif in Jones’ ‘Grammer of Ornament’ from the Assyrian and Persian Art Section, pl.XII no 14.

Details

Date: 1881
Dimensions: 67 x 77.7
Object Type: design
Material: ink and watercolour
Catalogue number: A237
Illustrator: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This large illustration is one of 17 (See A234-A242) used by William Morris to illustrate his lecture ‘Some Hints on Pattern Designing’ given at the Working Men’s College, London on 10 December 1881. The patterns derive mainly from plates illustrating similar motifs in the Egyption section of Owen Jones ‘Grammer of Ornament’. In fact this particulalr illustration is a close copy of a similar motif in Jones’ ‘Grammer of Ornament’ from the Egyptian Section, pl.IV no 16.

Details

Date: c.1930s
Dimensions: 286 x 76
Object Type: design
Material: charcoal and grey wash on paper
Catalogue number: A835
Artist: Whall, Veronica (1887 - 1967)
Credit notes: Gift of C.J. Whall, 1973

This design depicts Sir Galahad, one of the main protagonists in the Legend of King Arthur stories. Veronica Whall designed 72 windows depicting the tales of King Arthur for King Arthur’s Hall, Tintagel, Cornwall. The building was designed in the 1930s by Frederick Thomas Glasscock as a meeting place for Arthurian devotees to exchange interpretations of medieval literature. This design depicts Sir Galahad, one of the main protagonists in the Legend of King Arthur stories.

Veronica Whall was the daughter of Christopher Whall, she began assisting her father in her early teens. In the 1900’s 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: 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: 1864-66
Dimensions: 66 x 48.3
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A21
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

This designs of two angels was probably made in 1864 specifically for the west window of St Oswald’s, Durham (a three-light window with tracery) in which the main lights showing six scenes from the life of St Oswald were designed by Ford Madox Brown. The quarry panels below have shields bearing the arms of Elliott, Fogg and Fogg-Elliott by Philip Webb, while Morris was responsible for designing the half-length angels in circlets set in quarry panels between the upper and lower scenes in the main lights and for the angels in the tracery above. The angels, for which A21 is the design, appear in the second tier of tracery in two panel lights.
The same cartoon was used for windows in: Bradford Cathedral, 1864, Bloxham, 1869, Christ Church, Oxford, 1871, Knaresborough, 1873, Over Stowey, 1873, West Wratting, 1910, Wirksworth, 1909, and Wormington, 1912.

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.1892
Dimensions: 274 x 55.9
Object Type: design
Material: ink on paper
Catalogue number: A218
Designer: Morris & Co.
Artist: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938

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.

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: 1880s
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A301
Artist: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1960

This drawing is inscribed ‘Drawing Room Cornice, 9 Chesterfield Gardens by William Morris’. A section of the wallpaper printed from the design is also in the Gallery’s collection. The relatively large scale of the pattern, appropriate to the decoration of what was presumably a spacious room, is typical of Morris & Co.’s interior-decoration schemes from the mid-1880s, as is the relatively light colouring. 9 Chesterfield Gardens was the London home of Lord Henry Leconfield.

Details

Date: 1877
Dimensions: 55.5 x 46
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A256
Designer and maker: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This ‘predella’ panel is for the lower section of one of the four lights in a stained-glass window, depicting the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel in the upper part and scenes from their lives below in the north nave of Jesus College Chapel. The figures and scenes in this window were all by Burne-Jones, the prophets having originally been designed for a window in the east end of the north aisle of St Eustachius the Martyr, Tavistock, Devon (1875-76) where they appear in the middle tier.

Morris & Company’s eleven windows (1872-78) in the nave and transept of Jesus College Chapel, designed largely by Burne-Jones and Morris, are among the firm’s most spectacular commissions for stained glass. Burne-Jones’s Account Book (June 1877) records his charge of £10 for this cartoon.

The cartoon was subsequently used at All Hallows, Allerton, Liverpool (1879) and St. Stephen’s, Broughty Ferry, Angus, Scotland (1914).

Details

Date: 1865
Dimensions: 48.9 x 30.8
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A7
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This was designed by Morris for the right-hand light of a pair of small windows in the chancel south side of St. Olave’s , Gatcombe in the Isle of Wight. The panel has quarries above and below, and an inscription: ‘And he was received up into heaven’. The companion light on the left shows the Maries at the Sepulchre with the inscription: ‘Very early in the morning the first day in the week’; the design for this is the same as that by Morris for St Michael’s Brighton, 1861.

The design was not used again elsewhere.

Details

Date: c. 1863
Dimensions: 101 x 50.8
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A5
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

The cartoon was designed by Morris for the East window of Bradford Cathedral c. 1863 (window installed 1864), where the figure appears in the third tier of the side lights. According to the Morris & Co. minute book (now in collection of Sandford L Berger, Huntingdon, California) under 1 April 1863, the cartoons for the single figures in the East window were allotted as follows:
“Rossetti: Jacob, Mary Magdalene, Martha a t £3 each; Ned: Virgin Mary, David at £3 each; Marshall: St. Peter, Moses, Solomon, Anna at £2 each; Morris: Elijah, Mary sister of Martha, Joseph at £2 each; Brown: Abraham, Isaac, Elizabeth, Paul if he will accept them”

Two sketch designs for the window are also in the collection of The Huntingdon; the first shows most of the figures only very roughly indicated, narrower borders, no diagonal bands of letter in in quarry backgrounds, and a series of seraphs with shields and scrolls in the tracery. The second sketch, much more carefully drawn, shows the window as executed except that the figures of Ezekial and Daniel in the bottom tier are in the opposite order.

The East window was altered when a new Lady chapel was added to the Cathedral built to the design of Sir Edward Maufe; following removal, cleaning and restoration, the stained glass was re-fitted in the 3 windows of the East window of the Lady chapel, in 1964.
Full details of the window are given in A. C. Sewter, op. cit. pp. 27-29.

Other cartoons used for this window, now at the WMG are as follows: St. Luke (A10), Moses (A12), Isaiah (A22) and Mary of Bethany (A23) and St Peter (A19).
The cartoon was used again in the following places: St Stephen’s Parish Church, near St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands in a Tree of Jesse window in the West window, centre lancet, bottom , 1864. All Saints, Coddington, near Newar, Nottinghamshire, South aisle East window left hand light of three-light window (in reverse), 1882.

Details

Date: 1862
Dimensions: 77.2 x 88
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A4
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

The cartoon is for part of the west window of St Michael and All Angels, Brighton, for which Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., provided an extensive scheme of windows. The lower part of the west window consists of 2 windows, each with 2 lancets, containing full length figures of the 4 Archangels, each pair of lancets having a hexafoil window above. The left hexafoil over the top of Michael and Raphael, shows St Michaesl in combat with the dragon; the right hexafoil, over top of Uriel and Gabriel, an Annunciation scene; high above in the gable is a rose window with central panel of the Virgin and Child surrounded by 7 angels within circles playing on bells.

The present cartoon, which was not used again elsewhere, is an adaptation of a similar design by Morris for a 2-light window in the chancel, south, of F F Bodley’s church, All Saints, Selsley, in Gloucestershire. In the 2-light Sesley window (cartoon 1861, window 1862) the figures of Gabriel and the Virgin are contained in panels set into square, patterned quarries, inscriptions running below each panel,with decorative tracery in the head of the window. The cartoons for the Selsley window were only used on one other occasion (St Stephen’s Parish Church near St Peter Port, Guernsey; top of right and left lancets in west window) and are now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, purchased from Morris & Co. 1940.
The figure of the angel Gabriel in both the Selsley and Brighton panels is an adaptation from Jan van Eyck’s figure of Gabriel.

A drapery study for the figure of the Virgin (by William Morris – S.H.) is in the Sanford L Berger collection, Huntingdon, California. (Illustrated in Sewter, plate 63 – S.H.)

For other cartoons used in this west window of St Michael and All Angels now in the WMG, see the full-length cartoon for the Archangel Raphael (A6) also designed by Morris.

According to extract from account book 1862-1872 , Morris Marshall and Co. were paid £34.10 shillings and 4 pence on October 2nd, 1862; £40. 17 shillings on March 27th, 1863; £34. 19 shillings on August 16th, 1864 (Glass, S. Aisle) for work for Saint Michael and All Angels, Brighton. (S.H. from file document).

Selwyn Image wrote in 1909: ‘ Brighton possesses the finest modern piece of stained glass that has ever been done… for the magnificence of its design the sense which it gave one of being in the presence of supernatural beings, the perfectness of its splendid colouring, and for everything that goes to make a fine stained glass window, this specimen seemed to be perfection.’

Details

Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A14
Artist: Morris & Co. Art-Workers Ltd., 17 George Street, Hanover Square, London
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This is the second of two panels of the subject designed by Morris, the other for which the cartoon is also in the WMG (A13) shows the Virgin Mary holding the swaddled baby Jesus at an altar with the High Priest beyond. Both were originally designed for the east window in the north aisle of St Chad’s, Bishop’s Tachbrook, Warwickshire by Morris . The window in the church is composed of two lights with a quadrilobe above; the two panels of the presentation are set into panels of patternwork designed by Philip Webb above and below hem, with four circles containing the symbols of the Evangelists: top left: the Angel of St Matthew, bottom left: the Lion of St Mark, top right, the Bull of St Luke and bottom right, the Eagle of St John, all by Philip Webb. Webb also desinged the Angus Dei symbol in the quadrilobe in the tracery above. The window has an inscription below: In Memory of John Garner who died Feby.iii MDCCCLXII.

The Firm’s Minute Book records under the date 18 March, 1863: “Small drawings for E window of aisle of Tachbrooke Ch: assigned to Morris for 15 shillings each and the corresponding cartoons for £2. 5 shillings. The date is confirmed by Warrington Taylor’s list (of stained glass undertaken by the Firm, 1863-68, a copy of which is among the Morris papers at the Birmingham City Art Gallery.

The sketch design in watercolour is in the collection of Berger Collection, Huntingdon, California, together with a drapery study for the figure of Simeon in the Presentation. The sketch-design shows the head and hands of Christ in place of the Agnus Dei in the tracery.
For an illustration of the Bishop’s Tachbrook window, see Sewter, op. cit. Vol 1, pl. 143. For other places where the cartoon was used: Knaresborough, Yorkshire, St John the Baptist (1873) Choir, South side: 3 light and tracery with figures in 2 tiers in main lights in bottom of right light under figure of Simeon. Note: Presentation in the Temple: Virgin and Child & High priest as in WMG A13 also used in the same window in bottom of centre light below figures of Virgin and Child.

See Literature: A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris & His Circle, Yale Univ. Press, 1974-75, Vol. 1, pl. 145; Vol. 2, pp. 21, 107-108, 128-129 and 312.

Details

Date: 1864-65
Dimensions: 20.3 x 75
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A28
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG, purchase, 1940

For the chancel roof beams at All Saints’ church, Middleton Cheney, Northants., where Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. were employed by the office of Sir G.G. Scott to decorate the roof and make stained glass for the east (and other) windows 1864-65. This design is annotated with instructions by William Morris for the painter. The roof decoration in the chancel and nave was executed from Morris’s designs by a ‘Mr Cottam of Banbury’, probably George Cottam who was a painter, decorator and gilder working from 28 High Street, Banbury between 1835 and 1869. See also related A27.

Object Type: design

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