Study of Metalwork

Details

Date: c.1913
Object Type: drawing
Catalogue number: D298
Artist: Crane, Walter, 1845, 1915
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1971

This illustration by Walter Crane appeared in the book ‘Pages for Young Socialists’, 1913 by F.J. Gould. It accompanied the first chapter of the book, entitled ‘The Beating Heart’, which describes a scene in a book by Sir Frederick Travers, where the author watched a procession of poorly paid men carrying wood up a narrow path in Simla, India: “The men wanted a few pence to buy food for themselves and their families. From sunrise to sunset they walked, one by one, fifty in a line; hour by hour as beasts might plod and tramp; hour after hour, hoping the day might end and the light of the stars bring rest.” The term ‘coolie’ was used by the British to describe indentured labourers, usually from South Asia, South East Asia or China. It is now regarded as a pejorative term. Gould goes on to argue that work is a human right, and should be enjoyable, useful and workers should receive just pay.

Details

Object Type: drawing
Material: pencil on paper
Catalogue number: D432
Artist: Cockerell, Olive (1869 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Raymond Watkinson, 2002

Olive Cockerell was an artist and illustrator, primarily for fairy stories. She was the sister of the curator Sydney Cockerell and the naturalist Theodore Cockerell. She was also a friend of the Morris family and remained connected to them through her brother Sydney who was William Morris’s private secretary towards the end of his life.

Olive provided illustrations for stories by Anna Marie Diana Wilhelmina Pickering, sister of Evelyn Pickering de Morgan, including her popular Queen of the Goblins published in 1892. She also illustrated The Windfairies by Mary de Morgan, sister of William de Morgan, which was published in 1900. Mary de Morgan’s previous books of fairy stories had been illustrated by William de Morgan and Walter Crane.

Olive developed an interest in fairy stories from a young age. Her godmother, the social reformer Octavia Hill, send her a brooch in 1876 writing: ‘It is a funny little old-fashioned brooch, but I thought it was very pretty; and I liked it, because it looked as if it had a history. I thought you might like it for this reason too. But I am afraid it will not begin to speak to you, like those delightful things in Andersen’s stories.’

Details

Date: c.1899
Dimensions: 5.7 x 5.7
Object Type: drawing
Material: pen and ink on paper
Catalogue number: D181
Artist: New, Edmund Hort (1871 - 1931)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs J.W. Mackail (J.W. Mackail Collection)

“There is a timeless quality to this drawing by William Morris. In contrast with a lot of his work which is colourful and densely patterned, this is stark and simple. The bold black lines and simple cross hatching create a design that is both historic and contemporary. Integrating the text into a visual motif conveys Morris’s idea to a wider audience in a memorable and attractive way.”
Lucinda Purkis, WMG Young Producer

Details

Date: 1872
Dimensions: 73 x 75.6
Object Type: drawing
Material: chalk on paper
Catalogue number: D184
Artist: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Sitter: Wilding, Alexa (1845 - 25.04.1884)
Credit notes: Cecil French Bequest, 1954

Alexa Wilding, the subject of this drawing posed for many of Gabriel Dante Rossetti’s paintings in the 1870s. The artist and model’s relationship (unusually for Rossetti) remained entirely professional and Rossetti paid for a retaining fee to ensure she did not sit for any other artist. Nethertheless, his obsession with Jane Morris, with whom he had an affair in the 1870s meant other models were often endowed with her distinctive features- as here, where the mouth is more reminscent of Jane Morris that Alexa Wilding.

Details

Dimensions: 22 x 21
Object Type: drawing
Catalogue number: D221
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This sketch. which may depict the daughters of Hesperus, keepers of the Tree of Gilden Apples in Greek mythology, has an unusually animated character. There are echoes of William Blake – whose work was especially admired by Rossetti and whose biography was written in the 1860s by Swinburne, both friends of Burne-Jones. The drawing may be connected with the projected series of illustrations to William Morris’s cycle of poems The Earthly Paradise (eventually published unillustrated 1868-70) of which one of the tales, The Golden Apples, is a re-working of the classical legend of Hercules’s voyage to the land of Hesperus to steal the fruit of the Tree of Golden Apples, guarded by a serpent and the daughters of Hesperus. There is however, a somewhat similar drawing in a mid-1880s sketchbook at the British Museum, so the present drawing may well be related to a later, unidentified project.

Details

Date: c.1896
Dimensions: 10.1 x 15.9
Object Type: drawing
Catalogue number: D280b
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Designer: Catterson-Smith, Robert (1853 - 1938)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1962

One of three drawings in the same series. For two others see D280 and D280a. They were designed by Burne-Jones as illustrations for a prose version of The Hill of Venus which Morris had intended to write and publish in a Kelmscott Press edition.
The tale had already been written in verse form by Morris in The Earthly Paradise, and when Morris was planning to produce a fine printing of this work in the 1860s, Burne-Jones designed a number of illustrations for this story which were never used as the projected edition was abandoned. However, when Morris began his prose version of this tale in 1896, these original designs were taken up and developed by Burne-Jones for the Kelmscott press edition. The story remained unfinished at Morris’s death and hence the book never appeared. The borders which Morris had designed for the Kelmscott Press edition were later used in the small folio of the Story of Sigurd the Volsung published by the Press in 1898 (for a copy see K694). Burne-Jones’s illustrations were thus never printed, though some of them had been prepared for engraving by Robert Cattermole-Smith, using the same techniques as for the Chaucer illustrations. For three such prepared designs see D281, a and b.

Object Type: drawing

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