Thisbe embroidery design

Details

Date: c. 1863-4
Dimensions: 140 x 70
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, sepia and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A211
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: Cecil French bequest, 1954

This design is one of a number prepared by Edward Burne-Jones based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Legend of Good Women’, intended for an embroidered frieze for John Ruskin’s home. Burne-Jones had previously visited this subject in a series of tile panels produced for Morris & Co. in around 1861, and Morris himself had designed a series of wall hangings on the theme, intended for Red House, three of which are now located in the chapel at Castle Howard, North Yorkshire.

Here, Thisbe holds a sword and a mulberry leaf from the tree under which she is supposed to meet Pyramus, her lover. Before they can meet, she is frightened away by a ferocious lion, dropping her mantle as she flees. Pyramus arrives and, seeing the mantle, which has been torn and bloodied by the lion, he assumes the worst and kills himself with his sword. Thisbe soon returns to find her lover dead, and in her grief turns his sword upon herself.

The embroidery project was to be carried out by Burne-Jones’ wife, Georgiana, and the pupils of a girls’ school at Winnington Hall, Cheshire, run by Miss Bell, a friend of Ruskin. The work was never completed, however, as Georgiana remarked, “the joint embroidery scheme proved impracticable, and the drawings alone remained as a symbol of loving intentions”. These intentions did prove fruitful in the end, as the designs went on to be reused in stained glass windows made for The Hill at Witley, Surrey, of which six are now located in the Combination Room at Peterhouse College, Cambridge.

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: 1886
Dimensions: 45.8 x 33
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A208.1
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1953

The first of four cartoons designed and made for the window of a landing in the artist’s house in Rottingdean, Sussex. The windows (now in the V&A: C.623 to 626-1920) encapsulate the story of the Quest for the Sangreal (Holy Grail) and the failure of Sir Launcelot, depicted in this cartoon (because of his adultery with Guinevere), Sir Gawaiane, (because he fails to live up to courtly ideals) and Sir Galahad (because of his worldliness).

The cartoons were presented to Lady Leighton-Warren by the artist.

For references to the windows, see Angela Thirkell ‘Three Houses’, OUP 1931 p. 123.

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.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 symmetrical 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 commissioned by Mary Monroe Longyear of Marquette, Michigan, 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: 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 Michael 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, Huntington, 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

Date: 1862
Dimensions: 66.4 x 60
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: BLA472
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.

Trellis was the first wallpaper designed by William Morris, and the third to be printed by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. The design, which exemplifies Morris’s early interest in flat, abstracted pattern, layered to create a sense of depth, was based on rose trellises in Morris’s garden at Red House, the home designed for Morris and his wife Jane by Philip Webb. Webb worked in collaboration with Morris on this design for wallpaper, supplying the birds which add movement and interest to the composition.

Morris’s Arts and Crafts movement would have been impossible without Philip Webb, the modest, thoughtful and hardworking architect and designer whom Morris met while training as an architect in Oxford. Although primarily an architect, Webb was an avid sketcher of plant and animal life, as shown in his sketchbooks now held by the V&A. In addition to his role as a designer of furniture, metalwork and glass, Webb was also instrumental in the administration of Morris & Co., balancing the accounts and on occasion sacrificing his own wages to keep the business solvent.

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: 1890s
Dimensions: 71 x 71
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A294
Artist: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)

This design is for a quarter section of a panelled ceiling at Combe Court, Godalming, Surrey. From about 1890, Morris & Co.’s interior decoration commissions were larger designed and supervised by J. H. Dearle. Combe Court was built in 1850 by the Rev John Storer and later owned by George Henry Pinckard, MA, JP, c.1860. Pinckard was chief officer of the Clerical, Medical & General Life Assurance Company from 1839 to 1858, and remained a director of the company until his death in 1892. Pinckard’s widow Rosa remained in the house following his death, it then passed to his nephew George Henry Coles Pinckard.

A smaller scale drawing for two ceiling designs for Combe Court, one of which is this same design, is in the Huntington, California (Accession number: 2000.5.115).

Details

Date: 1875-1877
Dimensions: 73.8 x 58.7
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BLA458
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

This design for a carpet is an early design by William Morris, drawn before 1877, after which the Firm moved from 26 Queens Square to Oxford St. The patterns shows a geometric border in white, pale blue and green, with a central panel of scrolling acanthus leaves in blue-green and stylised flowers, with part of a pine cone.

The design is inscribed with the Queens Square address, and ‘Designed for Miss Beardmore’. The pattern was used again for a Hammersmith rug belonging to Dorothy Walker, now in the Emery Walker House (02344). The words ‘Finger Rug’ is crossed out, this was the term Morris gave to small rugs such as these. It is also inscribed No.18.

Details

Date: 1870s
Dimensions: 51 x 40
Object Type: design
Material: sepia wash and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A459
Designer: Morris & Co.
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

This embroidery design features large, curling acanthus leaves – a favourite of Morris and a popular feature of many of his designs for embroidery as well as textiles and wallpaper. Morris’s designs enlarged and foregrounded the acanthus leaf, and for this he likely took some inspiration from ‘Large Leaf Verdure’ tapestries produced in 16th-century France and Belgium. Verdure, or ‘greenery’ tapestries featured exaggerated leaf designs, often with other plants, birds and animals nestled amongst them. They became popular as the designs were easily adapted to different sizes, and the weaving process for the leaf pattern was relatively simple. As a result they could be produced more cheaply, and were therefore available to a wide range of buyers, echoing Morris’ ideals of art and design for all.

The design is numbered No46d in the Firm’s Embroidery Portfolio, another design for part of a pianoforte cover by Philip Webb, numbered 46 is in the collection of the William Morris Society (D88).

Acanthus leaves have been used as inspiration for decorative objects and architectural embellishments as far back as the 5th century, first found in Ancient Greek friezes, roof ornaments and perhaps most prominently in the capitals of Corinthian columns. When Greece came under Roman rule, the aesthetics of Greek decorative arts were brought into Roman architecture and furniture. The acanthus motif was particularly adopted and adapted: the swirling, curling leaves providing a sense of movement and depth to designs. The endurance of the acanthus has partially been credited to the adaptability and hardiness of the plant itself. It has been grown all over the world, used in medicines and for the preservation of food. Conceptually, the leaf has come to symbolise enduring life, immortality and strength.

Details

Date: c. 1930s
Dimensions: 111.8 x 49.5
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: BLA487a
Designer: Morris & Co.

Design for stained glass window roundel showing figure of young man in smock and trousers seated facing in profile to right at left on a work bench, a high-warp tapestry at centre in front of him, one hand picking up spools of thread from the bench, the other holding warp threads of the tapestry , a full size cartoon in background behind him, with view to room in background with spinning wheel at right. For two other cartoons for this panel see BLA487a and BLA 487c, which are working cartoons showing the framing border, inscription scroll and leading lines for the panel. The scene is similar to that shown in BLA485a-c, a large cartoon in three parts showing the Morris and Co. works at Merton Abbey and the various activities carried out there, which dates from c. 1938.

Details

Date: 1880s/early 1900s
Dimensions: 73.7 x 119.4
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A34
Attributed artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Attributed artist: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

John Henry Dearle, Morris & Co’s chief designer, drew this design for a tapestry sofa. The use of the scrolling acanthus leaves relates to other tapestries created by the Firm in the 1880’s, such as ‘The Woodpecker’ and ‘The Forest’ . However, Dearle designed other tapestries for upholstery in the 1900s and this could be one of his designs, following earlier styles.
The original tapestry was purchased by Ann Getty, Los Angeles, USA.

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: 1886
Dimensions: 45.8 x 33
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A208.4
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1953

The fourth of four cartoons designed and made for the window of a landing in the artist’s house in Rottingdean, Sussex. The windows (now in the V&A: C.623 to 626-1920) encapsulate the story of the Quest for the Sangreal (Holy Grail) and the failure of Sir Sir Launcelot (because of his adultery with Guinevere), Sir Gawaiane (because he fails to live up to courtly ideals), and Sir Galahad (because of his worldliness), and the achievement of Sir Lancelot, due to his purity of spirit.

For references to the windows, see Angela Thirkell ‘Three Houses’, OUP 1931 p. 123.

Details

Date: 1886
Dimensions: 45.8 x 33
Object Type: design
Material: ink on paper
Catalogue number: A208.3
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1953

The third of four cartoons designed and made for the window of a landing in the artist’s house in Rottingdean, Sussex. The windows (now in the V&A: C.623 to 626-1920) encapsulate the story of the Quest for the Sangreal (Holy Grail) and the failure of Sir Sir Launcelot (because of his adultery with Guinevere), Sir Gawaiane (because he fails to live up to courtly ideals), and Sir Galahad, depicted in this cartoon (because of his worldliness), and the achievement of Sir Lancelot, due to his purity of spirit.

For references to the windows, see Angela Thirkell ‘Three Houses’, OUP 1931 p. 123.

Details

Date: 1886
Dimensions: 45.8 x 33
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A208.2
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1953

The second of four cartoons designed and made for the window of a landing in the artist’s house in Rottingdean, Sussex. The windows (now in the V&A: C.623 to 626-1920) encapsulate the story of the Quest for the Sangreal (Holy Grail) and the failure of Sir Sir Launcelot (because of his adultery with Guinevere), Sir Gawaiane, depicted in this cartoon (because he fails to live up to courtly ideals) and Sir Galahad (because of his worldliness) and the achievement of Sir Lancelot, due to his purity of spirit.

For references to the windows, see Angela Thirkell ‘Three Houses’, OUP 1931 p. 123.

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: c.1875
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: 1872
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour, bodycolour and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A260
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This watercolour composition by Edward Burne-Jones is one of four designs for stained glass windows executed by Morris & Co. in 1872. They were made for the 18th century chapel at Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, and depict the Christian story of the birth of Jesus: ‘The Annunciation’, ‘The Nativity’, ‘Adoration of the Magi’, and ‘The Flight into Egypt’. The Morrises were good friends with the then Earl and Countess of Carlisle, George and Rosalind Howard, and would often exchange letters and pay visits. The Howards extensively modernised the interiors of their stately home with Morris & Co. designs during the late 19th century, notably redecorating the chapel and perhaps controversially covering a wall of Pellegrini frescoes with ‘Bird and Anemone’ wallpaper . Much of this was later removed, but the Arts and Crafts additions to the chapel, including these windows, remain to be seen today, a testament to their friendship.

Here, we see ‘The Flight Into Egypt’, with Mary and Joseph beginning their journey to seek sanctuary from the wrath of King Herod. The bold, linear style is somewhat different to the lush, delicately painted masterpieces Burne-Jones became known for, and relates directly to the final product. We can see the artist beginning to imagine how the glass will fit together, which elements will be leaded and which details will be hand painted. This image would then have been worked up into a full-size cartoon before being transferred to glass. A window using this same design was reproduced by Morris & Co. in the early 20th century, and can be seen in the Epiphany Chapel at Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire.

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: c.1880
Dimensions: 172.7 x 57.3
Object Type: design
Material: pastel on paper
Catalogue number: A136
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: Frank Brangwyn, 1936

This design is a coloured pastel finished drawing from the Morris & Co. East window of St. Martin’s Church, Brampton, Cumbria, 1880-1881. The windows at Brampton are one of Morris & Co’s masterpieces. After the windows were complete, Burne-Jones used coloured chalks to transform his design into this highly finished work.

The pelican feeding its young with drops of blood from its breast is a Christian emblem for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The nest sits on top of a highly stylised tree with sinuous curves. In the 20th century, the art historian Nikolaus Pevsner published this design as a precursor of Art Nouveau.

Details

Date: 1876
Dimensions: 94.5 x 66.2
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: BLA464
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

This design is for a printed textile, ‘African Marigold’. The design features small marigolds, with larger stylised lilies and curling ribbons of acanthus leaves. You can see that alterations have been made and lines have been rubbed out. Morris drew, revised and finally coloured a pattern on a single sheet of paper, believing that a harmonious piece of work should be done in one attempt. The design is stencilled on reverse with title, Morris & Co. address at Merton Abbey and numbered ‘No.1’.

African Marigold was first printed as chintz by Thomas Wardle of Leek. Two samples are held in WMG: F5 (green on natural ground) and BlF256 (red on natural ground).

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: 1865
Dimensions: 75.5 x 104.5
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and ink on paper
Catalogue number: BLA413
Artist: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915

Philip Webb’s design for the canopy of the East window of St John the Apostle, Torquay, Devon. The overall window was designed by Edward Burne-Jones working for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1865, the overall theme was of the Church Triumphant in the Heavenly Jerusalem. Webb designed the towers and turrets at the top of the five lights, this is for the central light. The church was designed by the architect G.E. Street who both Morris and Webb had worked for as young men. Burne-Jones designed a further West window for the church in 1890.

Details

Date: 1863
Dimensions: 48 x 19
Object Type: design
Material: ink and watercolour
Catalogue number: BlA410
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915

Philip Webb’s design for details of a canopy tracery. To the lower left, a narrow column surmounted with a foliate capital supports a triple-lobed arch with a trefoil detail. A gothic spire sits above the column and to the left of a band of decorated crenellation. Above this is a small pier adorned with blind tracery and surmounted with a simple gable. Springing from this is an ornate buttress topped with three curling ornaments. At the top is a spray of a feather and flower. Behind the motive are two light arches drawn in pencil with the rest in black, yellow, and sepia inks.

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: 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: 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: 1881
Dimensions: 16.5 x 8.6
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A519
Designer and maker: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs E. A. Yates, 1973

This design for a stained glass window of St. Cecilia was created for St. Nicholas’ Church, Halewood, near Liverpool. It features a single standing figure of St Cecelia in white robe, blue mantle with red lining, holding portable organ at right, turned slightly to the right. Red halo; stands on green grass, against purple/red ground, with diamond shaped floral patterned quarries above in head of light and below figure; bands for inscription below figure and at foot of window. Below the design is the inscription: Morris & Company, with the second and third lines reading 26 Queen Square WC being crossed out and replaced by Merton Abbey Surrey.

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

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. Another design drawing in the Gallery’s collection shows a different, and the final design for the dome (see: A1396). The subsequent design for the lower wall surface was in the end exectuted to designs by Henry Payne (1868-1940).

Details

Date: 1861
Dimensions: 60.9 x 91.4
Object Type: design
Material: pen, ink, wash on paper
Catalogue number: A268
Designer: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882

One of seven designs (WMG A263 -A269) by Gabriel Dante Rossetti from 1861, for stained glass executed by Morris, Marshall Faulkner & Co., for St. Martin’s Scarborough . The series is referred to in a letter from Rossetti to Ford Madox Brown (1 December 1861) (Doughty & Wahl, ‘Letters of D G Rossetti’. O.U.P. 1965, Vol.ii p.426): ‘I’m doing the Parable of the Vineyard for the shop glass; I think you have a number of ‘The Pictorial History of England’ with a Saxon wine-press in it. Would you kindly send it to me by book post? If you’ve anything else in the Vineyard line you might include it …’.

The seven panels were designed for the East Window of St. Martin’s, together with a Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and St. John by Ford Madox Brown. All seven panels were shown at the International Exhibition, London 1862 before being installed in the church.

Details

Dimensions: 52 x 54.3
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A250
Artist: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915

Sailing ship with emblem of sun on main sail, on a rolling sea with seabird (aguillemot) in the foreground; part of border on left side. The drawing of the seabird is especially characteristic of Webb, who was renowned for his sympathetic depiction of animals and birds. The purpose of this embrodiery is unknown, it may have been designed as a fire screen or banner. Inscribed in pencil in Philip Webb’s hand writing with detailed instructions as to colours, silks and cloth appliqués.

The design was in the collection of May Morris.

Details

Date: c.1861
Dimensions: 61.6 x 60.3
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A267
Designer: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase with a Victoria & Albert Museum grant, 1956

Details

Date: 1865
Dimensions: 48.9 x 30.8
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A7
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG Purchase, 1940

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: 1872
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour, bodycolour and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A259
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898

Here, we see ‘Adoration of the Magi’, the visitation of the three kings to the newborn Christ child. This traditional biblical scene features hallmarks typical of Morris & Co. design, including figures dressed in richly coloured medieval attire and intricate leaf patterns in the trees, reminiscent of Morris’s ‘Willow’ wallpaper, also produced in the 1870s. The bold, linear style is somewhat different to the lush, delicately painted masterpieces Burne-Jones became known for, and relates directly to the final product. We can see the artist beginning to imagine how the glass will fit together, which elements will be leaded and which details will be hand painted. This image would then have been worked up into a full-size cartoon before being transferred to glass. A window using this same design was reproduced by Morris & Co. in the early 20th century, and can be seen in the Epiphany Chapel at Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire.

Details

Date: 1872
Dimensions: 105.5 x 100
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour, bodycolour and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A258
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

Here, we see ‘The Nativity’ or scene of the birth of Christ, with Mary and Joseph gathered around the child, watched over by a host of angels. The bold, linear style is somewhat different to the lush, delicately painted masterpieces Burne-Jones became known for, and relates directly to the final product. We can see the artist beginning to imagine how the glass will fit together, which elements will be leaded and which details will be hand painted. This image would then have been worked up into a full-size cartoon before being transferred to glass. A window using this same design was reproduced by Morris & Co. in the early 20th century, and can be seen in the Epiphany Chapel at Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire.

Details

Date: 1872
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour, bodycolour and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A257

Here, we see ‘Annunciation’, depicting the three kings presenting gifts before a seated Virgin Mary who is holding Jesus on her lap. The bold, linear style is somewhat different to the lush, delicately painted masterpieces Burne-Jones became known for, and relates directly to the final product. We can see the artist beginning to imagine how the glass will fit together, which elements will be leaded and which details will be hand painted. This image would then have been worked up into a full-size cartoon before being transferred to glass.

Details

Date: designed c.1876
Dimensions: 58.5 x 59.1
Object Type: design
Material: pen and ink on paper
Catalogue number: A1061
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: Presented by Arthur Todd, 2002

William Morris based the design on two Italian seventeenth-century lacis-work panels acquired by the South Kensington Museum in 1875. The paper is watermarked 1876. Lacis is a handmade net onto which a design is darned. An example worked up by May as an embroidery is in the William Morris Gallery’s collection (F154). Another version of the Flowerpot design is in the William Morris Society (watercolour and pencil on paper).

‘Flowerpot’ was available to buy in kit form from Morris & Co.; as a tracing pattern to be embroidered at home, partly started, or as finished version worked by the Firm’s embroidery department. According to the Firm’s ‘Embroidery Day Book 1894-1896’ (V&A), a tracing of ‘Flowerpot’ cost 5 shillings, whilst a started version on cotton or linen cost 14 shillings. The square shape meant it was adapted into cushions and mounted into firescreens. Other worked examples are in collections of V&A, National Museums Liverpool, Birmingham Museum and the Embroiderers’ Guild.

Details

Date: c.1862
Dimensions: 9 x 36
Object Type: design
Material: ink and watercolour
Catalogue number: BlA445
Designer: Morris & Co.

Four quarry designs arranged vertically and framed with a black border each depicting a single stylized plant. Top: Five bluebells springing from single stem with rounded ground leaves. Middle top: Three four-petaled flowers with spear-like leaves springing from central point on ground with leaves. Middle bottom: Five four-petaled flowers on long stalks springing from tuft of grass with two grass fronds behind. Bottom: three circular flowers with pointed cleaves springing from central ground point with leaves. On back is written “QP73” with H (circled) Haddingston 1894, A (circled) Ambleside 1894 and ME. Little Hollingsbury 1908.

Object Type: design

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