Utrecht velvet

Details

Date: design registered 5 October 1875
Dimensions: 216 x 91.5
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F391
Attributed designer: Faulkner, Kate
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1998

The delicately meandering carnations in this printed textile are characteristic of the lightness and movement in patterns by Kate Faulkner (1841-98), one of the most skilled designers to work for Morris & Co. Introduced to Morris through her brother Charles, who was one of the founding partners of ‘The Firm’, Faulkner initially executed painted decoration on tiles and furniture before creating her own designs for ceramics, wallpaper and textiles. The simple two tone colour scheme of this pattern is typical of many of Faulkner’s designs, and adds to the airy feel of this piece, with the large blue carnations in the foreground subtly bound to the small flowers in the background by means of swirling vines. As well as creating designs for Morris & Co., Faulkner also designed several wallpapers directly for Jeffrey & Co.

This textile once belonged to the Arts & Crafts furniture maker Edward Barnsley. It has been backed and edged with a blue lining fabric.

Details

Date: Designed 1876, printed 1877-1917
Dimensions: 94 x 98
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F401
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Wardle and Co. (1872 - 1908)
Retailer: Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd, 449 Oxford Street, London
Credit notes: Presented by Michael Whiteway, 1998

Snakeshead was designed by William Morris in 1876. It was printed by Thomas Wardle at his factory in Leek, Wardle continued to print this design for Morris & Co., after Morris opened his own textile printing factory at Merton Abbey. The pink and blue on pink ground is colourway no. 1573. The selvedge is printed with Morris 7 Co’s Oxford Street address.

Details

Date: Designed c.1888
Dimensions: 65 x 65
Object Type: textile
Material: silk and linen
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F406
Attributed designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Attributed designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Ms A McEwan, 1998

Described by May Morris as ‘fit for a queen’s chamber’, this luxurious fabric is one of the last textile designs attributed to her father. Woven at Merton Abbey on hand-activated Jacquard looms, its shimmering texture is created by the contrast between the linen ground and silk pattern. In addition to its use within wealthy homes, Golden Bough was also popular for church furnishing, a profitable aspect of Morris’s business.

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: 5.5 x 50 x 26
Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: R551
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Barrett's of Bethnal Green Road
Credit notes: Gift of John Lewis Partnership, 1980

This printing wood block with used to print Morris & Co.’s designs onto cotton and was made by the firm of Barrett, 249 Bethnal Green Road. William Morris’s original drawing, or those of his other chief designer’s, would be transferred onto a pearwood surface using tracing paper. Morris would check all the blocks for accuracy before the pattern was carved into the surface by Barrett’s carvers. Each block was cut to match a different colour of the design and had to register correctly to ensure the pattern was printed accurately. Small pins were inserted in the edge of the block which when printed left tiny dots of colour. This allowed the printer to line the blocks up in the right place.

At Merton Abbey the cloth was stretched over a blanket underlay on one of the long tables in the printing shop. The printer would press the printing block into a dye-pad and then lay it into position on the fabric. The block was then tapped with a mall (a led weighted mallet) to ensure an even impression on the cloth. The printer then lifted the block, applied more colour and repeated the process down the whole length of the fabric. By this time the first colour had dried, allowing the application of second colour.

Details

Dimensions: 6 x 33 x 24
Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: R256d
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Barrett's of Bethnal Green Road
Credit notes: Gift of John Lewis Partnership, 1980

Details

Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: R450
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Barrett's of Bethnal Green Road
Credit notes: Gift of John Lewis Partnership, 1980

Details

Date: c.1873-75
Dimensions: 44 x 39
Object Type: drawing
Material: chalk on paper
Catalogue number: D186
Artist: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Sitter: Wilding, Alexa (1845 - 25.04.1884)
Credit notes: Cecil French Bequest, 1954

The subject of this drawing, The Blessed Damozel, is taken from the artist Gabriel Dante Rossetti’s poem by the same title, which was first published in February 1850 in the Pre-Raphaelite magazine The Germ. The subject is a young woman who has died and waits for her lover to join her in heaven. The poem’s opening lines are: The blessed damozel looked out/From the gold bar of heaven/ Her eyes were deeper than the depth/ Of waters stilled at even.

This study was for an oil painting (now in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, USA). The painting was commissioned from Rossetti by the Scottish politician and art patron William Graham in 1871, and completed in 1877. The model was Alexa Wilding, a favourite of Rossetti who modelled for many of his paintings.

Details

Dimensions: 7.5 x 30 x 23
Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: R598
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Barrett's of Bethnal Green Road
Credit notes: Gift of John Lewis Partnership, 1980

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: designed 1877, made 1877-1900
Dimensions: 200.7 x 142.2
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F335
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Maker: Godman, Ada Phoebe ( - Jan 1900)
Credit notes: Purchased 1978

One panel of a set designed and made to hang in the drawing room of Smeaton Manor, Northallerton, North Yorkshire. The panels are embroidered in wool on linen and features a pattern of alternating rows of clumps of stylised flowers, large blue artichoke heads and blue flower-heads against a background arabesque pattern of stems, leaves and small flowers. It is embroidered using stem, satin, long & short, French knots, split and back stich.

The panels were worked by Mrs Ada Phoebe Godman, who lived at Smeaton Manor. She was the daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, a wealthy customer of Morris & Co.. Godman commissioned William Morris to produce the design and her diary records its arrival on 31 August 1877. A surviving drawing shows her still working on the embroideries in 1900. The design was not exclusive, a pair of hangings from the same design were worked in silks by Mrs Margaret Beale and her daughters for their country home, Standen, East Sussex.

The two other panels from the Smeaton Manor set are in the collections of the Fitzwilliam and the V&A and a fourth, designed for a doorway was sold at auction September 2018.

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
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: designed c. 1860
Dimensions: 84.5 x 48.3 x 40.7
Object Type: furniture
Material: turned, ebonised wood with rush seat
Catalogue number: G55
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Owner: Jack, Jessie, Miss (1894 - 1972)
Credit notes: WMG purchase

Rush-seated armchair in turned, ebonised wood frame and rush seat. This chair has been widely attributed to the designer Philip Webb in the early 1860s. It was manufactured by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. and continuously produced by Morris & Co. until the twentieth century. The full range include armless chairs and a three-seater settle. The name ‘Sussex’ chair can be attributed to Morris’s biographer J.W. Mackail who commented that the chair was adapted from a country chair found in Sussex. Black or red Sussex chairs were used in Morris’s first family home Red House and this example was acquired from Jessie Jack, who’s parents George and Annie Jack, both worked for Morris & Co. Another version of this armchair without the spindles in the back was also produced by the Firm, see G27a&b.

Details

Date: c. 1870s
Dimensions: 85.1 x 137.2 x 41
Object Type: furniture
Material: turned, ebonised wood with rush seat
Catalogue number: G35b
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Lady Richmond, 1963

Rush-seated settle in turned, ebonised wood frame. This settle is an extended version of a single chair, widely attributed to the designer Philip Webb in the early 1860s. It was manufactured by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. and continuously produced by Morris & Co. until the twentieth century. The full range included this three-seater settle as well as armchairs and armless chairs. The name ‘Sussex’ chair can be attributed to Morris’s biographer J.W. Mackail who commented that the chair was adapted from a country chair found in Sussex.

Details

Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C82e
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L. Hitch, 1954

This series of 7 tiles depicts the story of Cinderella. It was designed by Edward Burne-Jones and painted by Lucy Faulkner. Burne-Jones account book for September 30, 1862 refers to : “10 designs for tiles, Cinderella paid £7.10s” which may well be the set made for Myles Birket Foster’s house, The Hill at Witley Surrey. The tiles were intended for an overmantel panel and four two tile figures, the original designs are in the V&A and Fitzwilliam. This set shows the colours having run during the firing, suggesting they were either trial samplers or rejects and kept by Lucy Faulkner. Other sets exist in the Gallery’s collection (WMG202), the Walker Art Gallery and the Sanford and Helen Berger Collection, The Huntington Library in California.

Details

Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C82f
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L. Hitch, 1954

Details

Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C82d
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L. Hitch, 1954

Details

Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C82c
Designer and maker: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L. Hitch, 1954

Details

Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C82
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L. Hitch, 1954

Details

Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C82a
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L. Hitch, 1954

Details

Date: designed November 1862, printed before 1940
Dimensions: 101.6 x 53.5
Object Type: wallpaper
Material: paper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B31
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Trellis was the first wallpaper designed by William Morris, but the third to be printed (Daisy and Fruit or Pomegranate being the first and second to be printed). The design was based on the rose trellises in Morris’s first house, the Red House, Bexley Heath, Kent. The birds were designed by Philip Webb (1831-1915), Morris friend and the architect of Red House. Repeat size: 53.3 x 53.3 cm.

Details

Date: 1876
Dimensions: 167.6 x 91.4
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Technique: slip-covered and hand-painted
Catalogue number: C176
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: De Morgan, William (1839 - 1917)
Manufacturer: Architectural Pottery Company, Poole
Credit notes: Purchased with a grant-in-aid from the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1974

William Morris’s design for this tile panel (A31) is also in the collection and is inscribed along upper right edge, ‘Tiles for bathroom, Membland’. Membland Hall, near Plymouth, Devon was purchased by Edward Charles Baring (1829-1897) in 1877. Baring was a banker, created first Baron Revelstoke in 1885. He exployed the architect George Davey (1820-1886) to re-model the house and add wings and outbuildings. This ceramic panel was manufactured by William De Morgan, with Morris’s design being painted on blanks supplied by the Architectural Pottery Company, Poole, Dorset.

Membland Hall was sold in 1916 and, prior to its demolition in 1928, a series of six sets of these tiles were found in a cupboard and had apparently never been mounted. One of these sets was presented to the V&A (C.36-1972) and another panel was with the Fine Art Society in 1972. The Museum for Applied Arts in Cologne acquired a panel of this design in 1978 (E04941). Tile panels of the design used at Membland appeared in the Morris firm’s stocklist as late as 1913 and were presumably available on commission until that date. In 1899 Lewis Day attributed the design and its execution to the year 1876 (William Morris and His Art, Art Journal Supplement 1899, p.19).

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: designed 1862, printed before 1940
Dimensions: 91.4 x 54.6
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B9d
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Edward Unwin, 1956

William Morris designed Fruit (also referred to as Pomegranate) in 1862 and it is one of his earliest designs for wallpaper. The pattern is formed of pomegranates, oranges and limes surrounded by foliage and flowers. The original design is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (E.299-2009) and included olive branches which were removed in the finished wallpaper. Morris first tried printing wallpaper at his studio in Red Lion Square in oil colours from etched zinc blocks. Unsuccessful he ordered traditional pearwood printing blocks to be cut for ‘Fruit’ and production was then subcontracted out to Jeffrey & Co. of Islington, which specialised in the production of hand-printed wallpapers and continued to print the firm’s wallpapers.

This example is stamped on the right edge ‘Morris & Co’ with their colourway number ‘Fruit 5’ and the price 13 shillings written in pencil on the reverse. It was formerly in the possession of Sir Raymond Unwin (1863-1940), architect, secretary of the Manchester branch of the Socialist League and acquaintance of William Morris.

Details

Date: 1867
Dimensions: 54 x 37
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BrW48
Attributed artist: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Attributed artist: Dunn, Henry Treffry, 1838, 1899
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1935

This is one of three watercolour replicas painted by Rossetti and assistants of his original oil painting, for which the model was Alexa Wilding, whereas here the model is Ellen Smith, a laundry maid who Rossetti ‘discovered’ in Chelsea.

This painting was largely painted under Rossetti’s supervision by H. T. Dunn, who became his studio assistant in 1867. It is probable the finishing touches were added by Rossetti himself, as the quality of the execution is superior to most of Dunn’s works. The couplet of poetry inscribed on the frame is from a French ballad, pledging happiness by day and night to the unseen partner of the loving cup.

Details

Date: c. 1881
Dimensions: 49 x 39
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on canvas
Catalogue number: O87
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

The image was based on a stained glass panel that Burne-Jones designed in 1878, one of a set of nine representing the Planets. Formerly depicting a full-length nude seated on a rock, in 1958 the canvas was cut down to its present size. The discarded canvas was not kept nor was a photographic record taken of the painting in its original state.

The stained glass was made by Morris & Co for the music room at ‘Woodlands’, the home of Sir Angus Holden situated on the outskirts of Bradford, Yorkshire. The stained glass no longer survives but the cartoons, including ‘The Evening Star’, are now at Torre Abbey, Torquay, Devon.

Details

Date: 1870
Dimensions: 78 x 55.5
Object Type: oil
Material: oil on canvas
Catalogue number: BrO30
Artist: Crane, Walter, 1845, 1915
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1936

‘Love’s Altar’ was painted by Walter Crane in 1870. It depicts a young man kneeling before an altar surmounted by a portrait of a young woman. The portrait is of Crane’s fiancée Mary Frances Andrews, whom he later married on 6 September 1871. Crane wrote a sonnet to accompany the work, published in ‘A Book of Verse’, 1891 (see below). It was exhibited at the Old Bond Street Gallery in 1870 described as ‘Love’s Sanctuary’. Whilst on display it attracted adverse criticism, the ‘Art Journal’ describing it an ‘an irreverent parody’ and commenting on ‘the incongruity of medieval treatment coupled with classical costume and accessories’.

Love’s Sanctuary

NO more I go to worship with the crowd

In Christian temples, pagan now to me,

No dim cathedral hears me pray aloud,

I sing no credo, as it used to be:

Though kneeling not beneath the roof of Rome,

Or in protesting fanes, I have a shrine—

A holiest of holies—Love’s sweet home,

On whose white altar lies life’s bread and wine.

There oft, in saddened times and weary hours,

To secret sanctuary do I flee,

Where one sweet presence soothes, like breath of flowers,

To whom their incense rises ceaselessly;

For there, though not a Roman devotee,

Sweet virgin Mary I do worship thee.

Details

Date: 1896
Dimensions: 28 x 22.7
Object Type: photograph
Material: photograph
Catalogue number: 107/Z1072
Photographer: Walker | Emery | 1851 | 1933
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Dorothy Walker, 1955

Photograph of the interior of Morris’s home Kelmscott House, Hammersmith by his friend and neighbour Emery Walker. The photograph shows the drawing room with a fireplace and mantelshelves with two rows of Iznik ceramic plates (the plates on the top shelf, far right and far left are now at Kelsmcott Manor) and a metal charger. Either side of the firplace are hangings of Morris & Co. ‘Bird’ woven wool, on the left is a Morris & Co. adjustable back chair and on the right a large settle also made by the firm. To the right of the fireplace is a mother of pearl inlaid table, possible north-African or Ottoman and a Turkish style rug in front of the hearth. A handwritten note of the back of the photograph explains that the firegrate was a wedding gift of Philip Webb to Morris.

Details

Date: 1885
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K3030
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Author: Bax, Ernest Belford (1854 - 1926)
Publisher: Socialist League Office
Credit notes: Purchased from Lord Tom Sawyer by the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 2015

Written on New Year’s Day 1885 by William Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax, the Manifesto of the Socialist League sets out the aims of the fledgling political group. After splitting from the Social Democratic Federation, Morris along with Bax, Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx and others founded the Socialist League as a more radical group that sought ‘the realization of complete revolutionary Socialism’.

Ernest Belfort Bax was a barrister and historian described by May Morris, William’s younger daughter, as ‘the learned and distinguished philosopher’. Bax taught Morris economics and Marxism in regular sessions that Morris referred to as ‘compulsory Baxination’.

The Socialist League logo featured on this pamphlet was designed by Walter Crane. Crane also produced illustrations for membership cards, invitations and posters for the group. His monochrome illustrations and engravings came to define socialist and trade union imagery for the next thirty years.

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 commissoned 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: c.1891
Object Type: photograph
Material: photograph
Technique: photographic cartoon
Catalogue number: BLPhA527e
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Photographer: Walker & Boutall

The Summons is the first of the series: ‘The Knights of the Round Table Summoned to the Quest by a Strange Damsel’ of six narrative panels relating to the story of the Holy Grail which was designed by Edward Burne-Jones in 1891-1894 , for a series of tapestries woven by Morris & Co. at Merton Abbey for Stanmore Hall, Middlesex. Photographic enlargements to the same size as the final tapestry were made from Burne-Jones final designs by Walker & Boutall, Fleet Street, and these enlarged cartoons were then worked over by the artist in ink, with some sepia and white heightening to bring out contrasts. BLPh527e appears to have been cut from the larger cartoon whilst the latter was still in the possession of Morris & Co.
The full size cartoons for the series are held in the William Morris Gallery (BLPhA527a-e, BLPh528a-b, BLPh529, BLPh530a-c, BLPh531). The series of tapestries is now in the collection of Birmingham City Art Gallery (M60’80).

Details

Date: designed 1886, printed before 1940
Dimensions: 90.8 x 52.7
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B58
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Edward Unwin, 1956

William Morris designed Lily and Pomegranate wallpaper in 1886, the original design is also in the Gallery’s collection, see A30. The pattern combines a central tulip plant, with adjacent lilies, pomegranate fruit and marigold flowers set against a dotted background.

This version was formerly owned by the architect Sir Raymond Unwin, who knew Morris.

Details

Date: designed 1874, reg. 22 July 1875, printed c.1880-9
Dimensions: 90.2 x 38.1
Object Type: wallpaper
Material: paper
Technique: block-printed in distemper
Catalogue number: B47
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Transferred from Temple Newsam House, 1952

William Morris designed this wallpaper of scrolling acanthus leaves in 1874 and registered the design for Morris & Co. on 22 July 1875. The size of the repeat is 66cm x 53.3cm and required 30 woodblocks to complete one repeat, making it one of the firm’s more expensive wallpapers, retailing for 16s a roll. The original design is in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (1941P413) and the working drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (CIRC.297-1955).

This fragment came from a former bedroom in Temple Newsam House, nr. Leeds, when it was being redecorated in April 1952. A larger example is in Temple Newsam’s collection (2013.0001.0168). It was probably hung by Emily Meynell Ingram in the 1880s and 90s, perhaps c.1894 when the Duke and Duchess of York stayed at Temple Newsam.

Details

Date: designed 1891, printed before 1940
Dimensions: 91.4 x 55.9
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B54
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Edward Unwin, 1956

John Henry Dearle first designed this as a pattern for chintz in 1887. It was also available as a printed velveteen and madras muslin, using the name ‘Cherwell’. Morris & Co. started producing it as a wallpaper from 1890 onwards. The pattern combines acanthus leaves and flowers, including pinks, thistles and chrysanthemums on a dotted background.

The repeat size is 76.8 x 53.3 cm. Printed on right edge: ‘MORRIS & Co’. In pencil on right: ‘Double Bough 305 9/9’.

Details

Date: designed 1862, printed before 1940
Dimensions: 63.4 x 57
Object Type: wallpaper
Material: paper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B124
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss H. Brooks, 1991

William Morris designed Fruit (also referred to as Pomegranate) in 1862 and it is one of his earliest designs for wallpaper. The pattern is formed of pomegranates, peaches, oranges and lemons surrounded by the fruit tree foliage and flowers. The original design is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (E.299-2009) and included olive branches which were removed in the finished wallpaper. Morris first tried printing wallpaper at his studio in Red Lion Square in oil colours from etched zinc blocks. Unsuccessful he ordered traditional pearwood printing blocks to be cut for ‘Fruit’ and production was then subcontracted out to Jeffrey & Co. of Islington, which specialised in the production of hand-printed wallpapers and continued to print the firm’s wallpapers.

This example is stamped on the right edge ‘Morris & Co’.

Details

Date: c.1866
Dimensions: 96.5 x 73.7 x 83.8
Object Type: furniture
Material: turned ebonised wood
Catalogue number: G2.1 to 4
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss F.J. Lefroy, 1951

The design of the chair was developed by Philip Webb, c.1866, although Warrington Taylor, the Firm’s business manager from 1865, seems to have been responsible for spotting the original prototype which formed the basis of Webb’s design. A note from Warrington Taylor to Webb contains a sketch of a smilar chair, annotated “back and seat made with bars across to put cushions on, moving on a hinge, a chair model of which I saw with an old carpenter at Herstmonceaux, Sussex, by name Ephraim Colman, your truly W. T.” It has always been supposed that the chair referred to above was an original piece of rural Sussex furniture; however a chair of a very similar design is illustrated in an early 19th century catalogue. Whatever the origins, the chair as designed by Webb for Morris went into production in the mid-1860s and became one of the Firm’s most popular items, still appearing in Morris & Co. catalogues as late as the first decade of this century. The chair is made of ebonized wood and upholstred in yellow Utrecht velvet, though less costly printed cotton covers were later available as an alternative.

Details

Date: c.1863-64
Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C202.4
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Purchased with the aid of the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 1992

This series of 10 tiles depicts the story of Cinderella. It was designed by Edward Burne-Jones and painted by Lucy Faulkner. Burne-Jones account book for September 30, 1862 refers to : “10 designs for tiles, Cinderella paid £7.10s” which may well be the set made for Myles Birket Foster’s house, The Hill at Witley Surrey. The tiles were intended for an overmantel panel and four two tile figures, the original designs are in the V&A and Fitzwilliam. This set is said to have been from a house adjacent to Bracken Dene, Low Fell, Gateshead (home of James Leathart, patron of the Pre-Raphaelites) Other sets exist in the Gallery’s collection (C82), the Walker Art Gallery and the Sanford and Helen Berger Collection, The Huntington Library in California.

Details

Date: c.1863-64
Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C202.7
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Purchased with the aid of the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 1992

Details

Date: c.1863-64
Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C202.6
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Purchased with the aid of the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 1992

Details

Date: c.1863-64
Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C202.5
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Purchased with the aid of the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 1992

Details

Date: c.1863-64
Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C202.3
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Purchased with the aid of the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 1992

Details

Date: c.1863-64
Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C202.1
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Purchased with the aid of the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery

Details

Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: R593
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Barrett's of Bethnal Green Road
Credit notes: Gift of John Lewis Partnership, 1980

Details

Date: 4.8.1893
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K9
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Author: More, Thomas, Sir (1478 - 1535)
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Editor: Ellis, Frederick Startridge (1830 - 1901)
Retailer: Reeves & Turner
Credit notes: Probably presented by Miss Demain Saunders, 1950

Book by Sir Thomas More. Reprinted from the 2nd edition of Ralph Robinson’s translation, with a foreword by William Morris. Edited by F.S. Ellis. Printed on paper with ‘Flower’ watermark in Chaucer type in black and red, with reprinted title in Troy type in Black. Borders and initials designed by Morris. Pages xiv (including Morris’s foreword and reprint of original title) + 282 pages + colophon (the first designed by Morris for Kelmscott Press). Dated 4 August 1893 (issued 8 September 1893). Limp vellum binding with silk ties 8vo.

Details

Date: 19.1.1898
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K694
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Catterson-Smith, Robert (1853 - 1938)
Maker: Hooper, William Harcourt (1834 - 1912)
Printer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs is an epic poem by William Morris, first published in 1876. The first refernce to a Kelmscott Press’s edition is found in the Press’s Secretary Sydney Cockerell’s diary on 5 November 1891 where he mentions “Saw … a trial page of Sigurd”. The following year, Morris was proposing it should be an illustrated folio and by 1895 it was announced as being in preparation in the lists by the Kelmscott Press. The folio was intended to be printed in Troy type with 25 illustrations by Burne-Jones, the number of these later being increased to 40. Burne-Jones was however reluctant to illustrate the book and made slow progress on the drawings. Two trial pages were set up and four borders were designed by Morris for the book, but in the end the scheme of printing it as a folio was abandoned. Two of the borders were later used for the Kelmscott Chaucer (pp. 470-471) the remaining two were never used, though one was engraved.

After Morris’s death, 32 copies of the folio pages were privately distributed to Morris’s friends in January 1897. Cockerell persuaded Burne-Jones to supply two illustrations for a more modest edition in small folio – a drawing for one of the illustrations “Gudrun setting fire to the Palace of Atli” (appears on the penultimate page) is now in the WMG’s collection, D192. The borders used in the small folio edition were almost the last Morris designed. They had originally been made for an edition of ‘The Hill of Venus’, which was to have been written in a prose version by Morris and illustrated by Burne-Jones. The foliage of the borders was suggested, according to Cockerell, by ornament in two Psalters of the last half of the 13th century in Morris’s library at Kelmscott House (see similarities of borders with those of the Windmill Psalter). This book was finally printed in 1898, two yeras after Morris’s death and is one of 160 copies printed on paper at 6 guineas (6 were printed on vellum at 20 guineas).

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: c.1895-7
Dimensions: 25 x 17.5
Object Type: drawing
Catalogue number: D192
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This pencil drawing by Edward Burne-Jones was a preliminary drawing for an illustration in William Morris’s Kelmscott Press edition of Sigurd the Volsung published in January 1898. The Kelmscott Press edition of Sigurd was first proposed in November 1891. At the time Burne-Jones was already working on the illustrations for the Kelmcott Press edition of The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, but agreed to provide 25 illustrations to the Sigurd. He found the subject much less congenial than working on Chaucer and his illustrations progressed slowly. Morris’s death in October 1896 put an end to the idea of a fully illustrated folio and in the final edition as printed, only two illustrations were used, ‘The Dwelling of Volsung’ (frontispiece) and ‘Gudrun Setting Fire to the Palace of Atli’. Another drawing, similar to this one, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Details

Date: 1874-1876
Dimensions: 88 x 582
Object Type: textile
Technique: embroidery
Catalogue number: F140d
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Bell, Margaret (1820 - 1886)
Maker: Johnson, Florence
Credit notes: Presented by Sir Hugh Bell, Bart., 1953

This embroidery was part of a frieze of five parts commissioned by Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell and his wife Margaret for the dining room of Rounton Grange, Northallerton, Yorkshire. The panels depict the story of The Romaunt of the Rose by Geoffrey Chaucer and were based on original pictures drawn by Edward Burne-Jones c.1874-76. The exquisite embroidery was executed by the wife and daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Margaret Bell and Florence Johnson, respectively.

Details

Date: 1874-1876
Dimensions: 96.5 x 126.4
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F140e
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Bell, Margaret (1820 - 1886)
Maker: Johnson, Florence
Credit notes: Presented by Sir Hugh Bell, Bart., 1953

This embroidery was part of a frieze of five parts commissioned by Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell and his wife Margaret for the dining room of Rounton Grange, Northallerton, Yorkshire. The panels depict the story of The Romaunt of the Rose by Geoffrey Chaucer and were based on original pictures drawn by Edward Burne-Jones c.1874-76 (see D187). The exquisite embroidery was executed by the wife and daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Margaret Bell and Florence Johnson, respectively.

Details

Date: 1874-1876
Dimensions: 92.1 x 123.2
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F140b
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Bell, Margaret (1820 - 1886)
Maker: Johnson, Florence
Credit notes: Presented by Sir Hugh Bell, Bart., 1953

This embroidery was part of a frieze of five parts commissioned by Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell and his wife Margaret for the dining room of Rounton Grange, Northallerton, Yorkshire. The panels depict the story of The Romaunt of the Rose by Geoffrey Chaucer and were based on original pictures drawn by Edward Burne-Jones c.1874-76 (see D187). The exquisite embroidery was executed by the wife and daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Margaret Bell and Florence Johnson, respectively.

Details

Dimensions: 15.2. x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware tiles painted in enamels
Catalogue number: C82b
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Painter: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L Hitch, 1954

Details

Date: 1893
Dimensions: 20.6 x 14.7 x 2.6 (closed)
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K446
Manufacturer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Author: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Reference Library, 1953

Ballads and Narrative Poems was written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Published by the Kelmscott Press in 1893, 310 were printed on paper and a further six on paper. The book is printed on paper and is set in Golden type in red and black ink. The woodcut frontispiece was designed by William Morris, along with the title, borders and initials. Ballads and Narrative Poems was part of a two volume set of works by Rossetti. A few months after this first volume was produced, the Kelmscott Press published Rossetti’s Sonnets and Lyrical Poems (K447).

Details

Date: c.1900
Dimensions: 188 x 296
Object Type: textile
Material: silk on hessian canvas
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F101
Designer: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Maker: Battye (née Bibby), Frances, Mrs (15.12.1846)
Credit notes: Donated by Miss M Audrey Battye and Mrs Bibby, 1950

The design for this embroidery was commissioned from Morris & Co. by Mrs Frances Battye. It was designed by May Morris and worked by Battye herself. Frances Battye (neé Bibby) was the daughter of James Jenkinson Bibby, a self-made millionaire and founder of the Bibby Shiping Line. She married her husband, a barrister called Richard Battye in 1866 however he died just a few years later in 1873. The Battye family coat of arms was incorporated into this embroidery. Two of May’s designs for this embroidery are in the V&A’s collection (E.30 and 30A-1940).

Frances Batteye was a skilled embroider and completed this large hanging with the help of her two daughters, Audrey and Norah. She also completed two other hangings around 1898, now in the V&A (T.369&A-1982).

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: c.1876
Object Type: photograph
Catalogue number: PP1/Z521
Sitter: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

Photograph of William Morris wearing an artist smock and soft felt hat, c.1876. Morris had an unconventional dress sense. At university he went through a phase of only wearing purple trousers. In later years his shirts and jackets were made exclusively from indigo blue cloth. His willingness to wear a working smock in this portrait reveals a great deal about his attitude to manual labour. Unlike many reformers, Morris was a hands-on craftsman. Practical workwear such as this was as much a profession of his affinity with working people as it was a practical choice, protecting his normal clothes from the dye vats and printing ink in his factory at Merton Abbey.

Details

Date: designed 1883
Dimensions: 56 x 54
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B52b
Designer: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1955

During her first three years working for Morris & Co, May Morris designed three wallpapers. ‘Honeysuckle’ was her most popular and enduring pattern and its light and uplifting design proved very successful for the firm. The design is based on a net structure of untamed woody stems, small curling leaves in two tones and honeysuckle flowers set against a plain background and was printed in four colourways. The repeat is 54cm.

Until recently questions surround who originally designed ‘Honeysuckle’, with some arguing that May’s father, William Morris was in fact the chief designer of the wallpaper. This is based on its earliest known attribution from 1890 by the writer of an article in The Woman’s World where it was credited to William Morris. However it was not unusual at this time for the designs of both May and Henry Dearle, Morris & Co.’s chief designer, to be credited to the firm’s more famous owner: the association tended to make the products more commercially viable. The first time the design is attributed to May appeared twenty years after The Womans World article in the Morris & Co. wallpaper catalogue from about 1909 and is confirmed in a letter by May.

Details

Dimensions: 28 x 22.7
Object Type: photograph
Material: photograph
Catalogue number: P754
Photographer: Walker | Emery | 1851 | 1933
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Dorothy Walker, 1955

This photograph captures the dining room of Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, home of the Morris family. Dominating the space is a magnificent 17th-century Iranian ‘Vase’ carpet, dramatically draped across the wall and ceiling. The carpet was given to the V&A by Jane Morris when she left Kelmscott House in 1897. In front stands a Cypress wood chest displaying examples of Iranian metalwork, including two brass peacocks that are now at Kelmscott Manor. Above the doorway hangs a portrait of Jane Morris by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

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: 1864
Dimensions: 58.3 x 66
Object Type: glass
Material: stained, painted, leaded glass
Catalogue number: C198
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Manufacturer: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

This stained glass panel is from a series illustrating Chaucer’s ‘Legend of Goode Wimmen’. Amor (left) in white robe with painted yellow flowers, with red wings, holding a sheaf of arrows and clasping the hand of Alcestis (right), in a green robe, with long golden hair and a pearl ornamented crown. The two figures stand in an enclosed garden against a background of a city, the walls of which bear the inscriptions ‘Imago Amoris’ (left) and’ Imago Martyris’ (right) in Gothic lettering, within a running border of Tudor roses and stems.

It is possible that the Amor & Alcestis panel might be part of the original series made for Myles Birket Foster, which is known to have been dispersed at some time between the wars. It is certainly a very early version of the design, other examples of which are at the V&A, at Peterhouse in Cambridge, and in private collections.

Details

Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: R477
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Barrett's of Bethnal Green Road
Credit notes: Gift of John Lewis Partnership, 1980

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?’

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