Large floral pattern

Details

Date: c. 1880
Dimensions: 127 x 160
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A32b
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

This is the only repeating pattern designed by William Morris in collaboration with Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Burne-Jones’s work record for 1875 lists his drawings of the two mermaids, which were incorporated in Morris’s designs of scrolling foliage and flower-heads. Although the fabric was never woven, both Morris and Burne-Jones made use of the design for other works; the background pattern became the ‘Wreath’ wallpaper of 1876 and the mermaid figures were adapted by Burne-Jones for both gesso panels and paintings in the 1880s. The uppermost of the two mermaids – the one holding two fishes – is a re-working of Burne-Jones’s painting “The Sea Nymph’ (1878-1881). The design may have been intended to decorate the room in Burne-Jones’s house at Rotingdean which he furnished as a tavern nicknamed ‘The Merry Mermaid’. See also a pencil version, WMG A32a.

Details

Date: c. 1880
Dimensions: 99 x 93.9
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A32a
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

This is the only repeating pattern designed by William Morris in collaboration with Edward Burne-Jones. Burne-Jones’s work record for 1875 lists his drawings of the two mermaids, which were incorporated in Morris’s design of scrolling foliage and flower-heads. Although the fabric was never woven, both Morris and Burne-Jones made use of the design for other works: the background pattern became the ‘Wreath’ wallpaper of 1876 by Morris and the mermaid figures were adapted by Burne-Jones for both gesso panels and paintings in the 1880s. This design was likely drawn by a Morris & Co. draughtsman from the original watercolour cartoon by William Morris, see WMG A32b.

Details

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

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

Details

Date: 1864
Dimensions: 101 x 60
Object Type: design
Material: black and sepia wash and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A11
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

The cartoon was originally designed by Morris for a window in the vestry of St Barnabas’ church, Linslade, Bedfordshire in 1864 where it occupies the right-hand light in a three-light window. The only reference to it is in the list which Warrington Taylor made of stained glass windows executed by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. 1863-1868, a copy of which is among the Morris papers at Birmingham Art Gallery. The entry also states that Philip Webb did the canopy and pattern work in this light, but this is not recorded in Webb’s account book.
The figure also appears in the chancel south window of Bradford Cathedral (1864) – a 5-light window with tracery above and with 2 tiers of figures in the main lights, in which St Barnabas appears at the left-hand side of the lower tier. The Bradford version is thus a reversal of A11, which suggests it was done after that at Lindslade. The cartoon was also used again for windows in the following locations (listed in date order):
St Wilfrid’s Haywards Heath, Sussex in a memorial window to Emma Oldfield (d. 27 March, 1867) in the south aisle, 1868.
St Editha’s, Tamworth, Staffordshire in the lower row, right, of the east window, 1864.
Parish church, Ponsonby, Cumbria in the lower part of the right lancet of the east window, 1877.
St Denys’, Rotherfield, East Sussex in the east window, 1878.

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

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

Details

Date: 1862
Dimensions: 218.4 x 73.7
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A6
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Artist: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

First designed in 1862 for the west window of St Michael and All Angels, Brighton, Sussex. The window consits of 2 windows, each of 2 lancets, each with 6-foil above: at the left, Michael and Raphael with scene of St Michael and the Dragon, and at the right Uriel and Gabriel with scene of Annunciation above (for which see WMG A4); high in the gable above this is a rose window consisting of a central 7-foil scene of the Virgin and Child surrounded by 7 circles of music-making angels. The window was a memorial to Jane Barber (d. 15 Jan. 1860) and Thomas Barber (d. 1 Jan. 1863).

The cartoon was afterwards used for windows at Broughty Ferry, Angus, Scotland, 1914, (window in east wall of south transept of St Stephen’s) at Darwen, Lancashire, 1922 (window in south of south transept of St Cuthbert’s) note: design adapted) at Eaton Hastings, Berkshire (west window of St. Michael’s) 1935 and at Nelson, lancashire, 1919 (tracery above main chancel east window) (note: design adapted).

All four Archangels are depicted in the window at Brighton: St Gabriel (very similar inconception to St Raphael) is also by Morris, whilst SS. Michael and Uriel are the work of Ford Madox Brown.

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: May 1903
Dimensions: 186 x 112
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and ink
Catalogue number: A1202
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Credit notes: Gift of John Brandon-Jones, 2003

This lectern was designed for Eglwys Cwymmin- Ancient Church of St. Margaret in Carmarthenshire in south-west Wales. The design which was intended to be carved in oak depicts a figure of St Margaret. A letter written to Jack from Philip Webb on 29 June 1903 (see The Letters of Philip Webb, Volume 4) explains how the design was not suited to the simplicity of the building, and was therefore rejected. Webb wrote “your good design- good in itself- is, I think, not likely to look as well in the church as it does in your sketch, and I’m sure would disappoint you ever saw the made thing in the building. Webb was working on the restoration of the church.

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
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: 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: A208.1
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

Dimensions: 86.4 x 76.2
Object Type: design
Material: paper
Catalogue number: A305
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1960

Morris’s connection with Christianity was as much aesthetic and historic as spiritual. Originally planning to join the clergy, his contribution to religious life instead came through preserving historic churches and supplying interior decoration such as stained glass windows and textiles. This design, delicately rendered in pencil and watercolour, forms part of the repeat pattern of an embroidered frontal, a cloth used to decorate the altar during services. The grape and vine is a popular motif in ecclesiastical textiles, a reference to the wine that signifies the blood of Christ in the Christian service. This embroidered frontal was advertised in the Morris & Co. catalogue as “a festival altar frontal, 9 ft. wide (capable of being extended) worked in Morris floss silks and gold on ivory satin” and sold for £125.

Details

Date: 1865
Dimensions: 79 x 21.7
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A27
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

This design was made by William Morris for the decoration of the chancel roof at All Saints’ church, Middleton Cheney, Northants., in 1865. The design is extensively annotated by Morris with instructions to the painter, 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. Middleton Cheney church was ‘restored’ by the office of Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1864-65; Morris, Marshall & Faulkner & Co. made the east window (1864) and designed the painted roof of the chancel and nave – partly based on medieval decoration

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

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

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: 1883
Dimensions: 101 x 68.5
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and ink on paper
Catalogue number: BLA461
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This design was handrawn by William Morris in 1883. The design is of pencil and watercolour on paper. His design is of meandering stems with acanthus leaves and flower heads against a background of smaller leaves and vines. As with many of his patterns, William Morris named this design after a tributary of the River Thames. This design is for silk damask but Kennet was also available as a printed cotton, the design for which is in the collection of Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery.

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 25.15 x 6.48
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A50c
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Commissioner: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

The Century Guild were commisoned to design six stained glass windows for the Loretto School Chapel, Musselburgh, Scotland. The chapel was built between 1891 and 1893 as a gift to Dr. Almond from Old Lorettonians. This design, depicting the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, was created by Selwyn Image, it is in three parts (A50a-c). The finished window was executed by James Powell & Sons and is also in the collection (C112). The other five windows depict Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple (see original designs: A78-90); The Crucifixion; The Ascension (see original design A57); Christ and St Mary Magdalene and Christ at Emmaus (window now in the V&A).

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 25.15 x 6.48
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A50b
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Commissioner: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 25.15 x 6.48
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A50a
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Commissioner: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Object Type: design

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