Morris & Co reproductions, Sanderson samples

Details

Dimensions: 51 x 13.5
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F385
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Harriet Hardiment, 1997

William Morris designed Flower Garden in 1879. He described it in a letter to Georgian Burne-Jones on 4 March 1879: ‘I am…in a whirlwind of dyeing and weaving, and…rather excited by a new piece…which looks beautiful, like a flower garden’. Morris claims to have chosen the colours to ‘suggest the beauties of inlaid metal’. They were almost certainly influenced by a display of items from Damascus he had studied in a dealer’s shop in London in 1878.

Details

Date: designed c.1875, manufactured c.1920s
Dimensions: 85.1 x 22.6
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: machine-woven
Catalogue number: N13b
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Retailer: Morris & Co. Art-Workers Ltd., 17 George Street, Hanover Square, London
Manufacturer: Wilton Royal Carpet Factory Ltd
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

‘Lily’ was William Morris’s first design for a wool pile carpet. It was machine woven on a jaquard loom for Morris & Co. by Yates & Co. in Wilton, and from 1905 its successor, Wilton Royal Carpet Company. The repeating pattern is formed of stylized lily plants intertwined with scrolling flowers on a dark blue background. Although the design wasn’t registered with the Patent Office it was in production in 1877, along with a number of other designs, when Morris advised the Countess of Tullamore in Ireland on the decoration of her house. Wilton carpets were the most popular type of machine woven carpets made by Morris & Co., and of the 24 different designs available ‘Lily’ was a best seller.

This fragment, along with four others were removed from a larger piece (see N13) to make it a regular size when it was first acquired by the Gallery in 1964.

Details

Date: designed c.1875, manufactured c.1920s
Dimensions: 79.4 x 22.2
Object Type: textile
Material: woollen pile on cotton warp
Catalogue number: N13d
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Retailer: Morris & Co. Art-Workers Ltd., 17 George Street, Hanover Square, London
Manufacturer: Wilton Royal Carpet Factory Ltd
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

This fragment, along with four others were removed from a larger piece (see N13) to make it a regular size when it was first acquired by the Gallery in 1964.

Details

Date: designed c.1875, manufactured c.1920s
Dimensions: 101.6 x 16.5
Object Type: textile
Material: woollen pile on cotton warp
Technique: power-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: N13c
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Retailer: Morris & Co. Art-Workers Ltd., 17 George Street, Hanover Square, London
Manufacturer: Wilton Royal Carpet Factory Ltd
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

This fragment, along with four others were removed from a larger piece (see N13) to make it a regular size when it was first acquired by the Gallery in 1964.

Details

Date: designed c.1875, manufactured c.1920s
Dimensions: 29.8 x 15.5
Object Type: textile
Technique: power-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: N13a
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Retailer: Morris & Co. Art-Workers Ltd., 17 George Street, Hanover Square, London
Manufacturer: Wilton Royal Carpet Factory Ltd
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

This fragment, along with four others were removed from a larger piece (see N13) to make it a regular size when it was first acquired by the Gallery in 1964.

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 37.7 x 125.7
Object Type: textile
Material: silk
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F320
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Maker: Jack, Annie Christian (1861 - 1942)
Credit notes: Presented by Miss J Jack and Miss M Jack, 1972

This embroidery, stitched by Annie Christian Jack and designed by her husband George Jack, has a folk-art quality. The design shows the main characters from William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. The dancing figure of Oberon (left) bears an uncanny resemblance to William Morris. Titiana and Puck are to the right. Below is the inscription “Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight”.

The panel was designed as a piano frontal and is worked in split stitch, stem stitch, herringbone, long and short stitches, cross-bar with small diagonal stitches infilled with satin stitch, single chain stitch; metal beads used for Titania’s crown and blanket Stitch.

A very similar embroidery appears also as a bolster cover at Wightwick Manor, National Trust.

Details

Date: early 1860s
Dimensions: 185.5 x 127.5
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F390i
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Purchased with assistance of the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 1997

This embroidered hanging was designed by William Morris and probably hung in his first home, Red House in Bexleyheath. It was most likely stitched by a small team that may have included Morris’s wife Jane and her sister Elizabeth Burden. In the early days of their marriage Morris and Jane often worked on embroideries together. They enjoyed unpicking old pieces of embroidery that they admired to learn the different stitching techniques. Morris’s enthusiasm for medieval art is clear in his early embroidery designs, such as this one. The tree, banner and bird motif was inspired by an illustration in a fifteenth-century manuscript that he had been studying in the British Museum. The French inscription, ‘Qui Bien Aime Tard Oublie’, translates as ‘who loves best forgets slowly’ and is taken from Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem ‘Parliament of Fowls’. In simple terms it means ‘one never forgets true love’.

The embroidery was one of a set of identical hangings installed at Penkill Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland by the late 1860s. The castle belonged to Alice Boyd, mistress of the painter William Bell Scott, who was closely connected to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite circle. In a letter to Boyd in 1868, Rossetti referrers to the embroideries as “the Topsaic tapestries” a reference to Morris’s nickname ‘Topsy’. The hangings were likely an early product produced by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co after it was founded in 1861. A very similar pattern can be seen on the hanging in the background of William Morris’s only easel painting, ‘La Belle Iseult’, painted in 1858.

Details

Date: designed 1883
Dimensions: 106 x 99.7
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F306
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Presented by Whitworth Art Gallery, 1969

This fragment of ‘Borage’ in green on natural ground, designed by William Morris, was given to the Whitoworth Gallery, Manchester by the firm Wardle and Co. and later transferred to the William Morris Gallery. Thomas Wardle was a master dyer who worked with Morris to perfect the dyes used for his textiles, his firm also manufactured Morris & Co. textiles before Morris moved his production in-house to Merton Abbey in 1881. This pattern was designed in 1883 and thefore post-dates Wardle & Co’s period of production for Morris & Co.

Details

Date: designed 1883
Dimensions: 22.9 x 19
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F305
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Whitworth Art Gallery, 1969

This fragment of ‘Borage’, designed by William Morris, was given to the Whitoworth Gallery, Manchester by the firm Wardle and Co. and later transferred to the William Morris Gallery. Thomas Wardle was a master dyer who worked with Morris to perfect the dyes used for his textiles, his firm also manufactured Morris & Co. textiles before Morris moved his production in-house to Merton Abbey in 1881. This pattern was designed in 1883 and thefore post-dates Wardle & Co’s period of production for Morris & Co.

Details

Date: designed 1883
Dimensions: 22.9 x 88.3
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F303
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Presented by Whitworth Art Gallery, 1969

This fragment of ‘Borage’, designed by William Morris, was given to the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester by the firm Wardle and Co. and later transferred to the William Morris Gallery. Thomas Wardle was a master dyer who worked with Morris to perfect the dyes used for his textiles, his firm also manufactured Morris & Co. textiles before Morris moved his production in-house to Merton Abbey in 1881. This pattern was designed in 1883 and thefore post-dates Wardle & Co’s period of production for Morris & Co. This example is overprinted with a number, possibly the pattern number 720/8605 and a date 19-6-24.

Details

Date: designed 1883
Dimensions: 21 x 62.2
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F302
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Whitworth Art Gallery, 1969

This fragment of ‘Borage’, designed by William Morris, was one of a number of examples given to the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester by the firm Wardle and Co. and later transferred to the William Morris Gallery in 1969. Thomas Wardle was a master dyer who worked with Morris to perfect the dyes used for his textiles, his firm also manufactured Morris & Co. textiles before Morris moved his production in-house to Merton Abbey in 1881. This pattern was designed in 1883 and thefore post-dates Wardle & Co’s period of production for Morris & Co.

Object Type: textile

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