Sketch made at the South Kensington Museum to illustrate Wood Carving: Design and Worksmanship

Details

Date: c.1880
Dimensions: 60.8 x 129.5
Object Type: textile
Material: silks on silk
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F342
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Maker: Holiday, Catherine (1839 - 1925)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1992

This cushion cover was embroidered by Catherine Holiday née Raven (1839-1925), who worked as a freelance designer for the embroidery depratment of Morris & Co., from 1876. Holiday was greatly admired by William Morris, who in a letter to her from her husband, was reported to have said “you are the only person he has ever met whose work is as good as the old. Miss Burden [Elizabeth Burden] is all very well but she doesnt know how to put her stitches together like this”. Holiday negotiated her own prices with Morris and her work fetched a high price, larger pieces such as portieres (door hangings) or bed hangings ranged from £100-£150 and Morris was concerned they were too expensive.

Holiday exhibited work at the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society in 1888, and in 1890, where she submitted a wallhanging and portiere, the later a design by William Morris.

Holiday was married to the Arts & Crafts stained glass designer and painter Henry Holiday.

Details

Date: c.1920s
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K3513
Author: Liebert, M., Dr.
Publisher: Meister, Lucius and Brüning Ltd
Credit notes: WMG purchase , 2000

This booklet, Indigo: Its Application in Dyeing and Printing is an instructional booklet on dyeing with indigo, written by Dr M Liebert of Meister Lucius & Bruning Ltd. based on lectures Bradford Foreman Dyers’ Guild. The book once belonged to the Chadwick Family, who had a long association with Morris & Co, several generations of the family having worked for the firm. Frank Chadwick started his career with Morris & Co. c.1921 as a dyer, later becoming one of the Firm’s weavers. The inside page is inscribed in pencil with notes on dyeing. This book was accompanied with: a letter of recommendation for Frank Chadwick from Morris & Co. (dated 19 September 1940) following the closure and voluntary liquidation of the firm, a newspaper cutting (publication unknown) on the Chadwicks’ links with Morris & Co. and a bronze medal awarded to Morris & Co. for work shown at the Exposition Universelle Internationale, Paris, 1900 (S57).

Details

Date: c.1880
Dimensions: 71.1 x 35.6
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A209
Artist: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

This full-size drawing for an embroidered frieze was produced for Morris & Co. by Phillip Webb in around 1880. Webb was primarily an architect, notably designing Morris’s Red House, but was also a gifted draughtsman with a particular interest in the natural world. As a young boy, he studied the illustrations of Thomas Bewick, the influence of whom remained evident throughout Webb’s artistic output. William Morris would often ask Webb to draw the animals within his designs for wallpapers, tapestries and textiles, recognising his superior skill. See for example ‘Trellis’, Morris’s first wallpaper design (William Morris Gallery BLA472), and ‘The Forest’, a large tapestry woven at Merton Abbey in 1887, which also incorporates a peacock into its design alongside Morris’s swirling acanthus leaves. In the finished frieze (see William Morris Gallery F430), the peacock is surrounded by gleaming golden grape vines designed by Morris.

Details

Dimensions: 21.5 x 15.3 x 4
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K3450
Owner: Gilmore (née Morris), Isabella (1842 - 1923)
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Alison Langley bequest, 2020

1905 Longmans edition of ‘The Earthly Paradise’ by William Morris, from Morris’s sister, Isabella Gilmore’s collection. Taking the form of a compendium of different narratives, ‘The Earthly Paradise’ is an epic poem structured as a frame story, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. It tells the story of a group of Norsemen who have fled a plague in Europe in search of the mythical earthly paradise. Eventually they come to a land where the inhabitants still worship the ancient Greek gods. They decide to stay here and each month the wanderers and the city elders exchange tales. ‘The Earthly Paradise’ contains the tales from a whole year, comprising twenty-four stories. Through this narrative Morris draws both upon Greek myths and Medieval Romance tales, including Icelandic Eddas and Sagas.

Details

Date: 10.10.1885
Dimensions: 27.3 x 23.8
Object Type: print
Catalogue number: K2037
Author: Stafford, John Phillip (1851 - 1899)
Maker: W. H.
Sitter: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Effie M Morris, 1954

This cartoon appeared on the front cover of ‘Funny Folk’s on 10 October 1885. It shows a jaunty William Morris having his boots cleaned by a policeman; referring to Morris’s arrest on September 21, 1885 at Thames Magistrates Court for shouting “shame” during a trial. The arrest occurred after Morris protested the sentence of Lewis Lyons, a tailor, who was given two months of hard labor for allegedly resisting arrest at a public protest. Morris was arrested but because of his social position got off lightly in comparison to the sentences and fines imposed on other demonstrators.

Details

Date: 1880s
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A301
Artist: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1960

This drawing is inscribed ‘Drawing Room Cornice, 9 Chesterfield Gardens by William Morris’. A section of the wallpaper printed from the design is also in the Gallery’s collection. The relatively large scale of the pattern, appropriate to the decoration of what was presumably a spacious room, is typical of Morris & Co.’s interior-decoration schemes from the mid-1880s, as is the relatively light colouring. 9 Chesterfield Gardens was the London home of Lord Henry Leconfield.

Details

Date: designed 1878
Dimensions: 188 x 124.5
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F269
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

William Morris designed Bird woven wool in 1878. The pattern features pairs of birds, both standing and in flight, surrounded by scrolling acanthus leaves and yellow sunflowers. For earlier designs, Morris had relied on Philip Webb to draw the birds, as seen in the Trellis wallpaper. However, on 25 March 1877, Morris wrote to his friend, the textile manufacturer Thomas Wardle (1831–1909), stating: ‘I am studying birds now to see if I can’t get some of them into my next design.’ Bird is the first in a series of textile designs by Morris to feature his own drawings of birds.

In April 1878, around the time this design was created, Morris moved into Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, where he subsequently adorned every wall of the first-floor drawing room with Bird woven wool curtains.

The original design is held in the collection of the William Morris Society, London (D31).

Details

Date: 22.07.1869
Object Type: archival
Material: paper
Catalogue number: J849
Publisher: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

This printed receipt is for a payment of 19 shillings from Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. to F.R. Leach & Co. The receipt is dated 22nd July 1869 for ‘Man’s time at Liverpool’. During this period Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. were working on stained glass windows for St John the Baptist Church in Tuebrook, Liverpool. The church in Liverpool was designed by the Gothic Revival architect G.F. Bodley, with the highly decorated interior of the church a collaboration between Bodley, Charles Kempe, Leach and Morris.

Details

Date: 06.1911
Dimensions: 15 x x 11.5
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1597f
Publisher: Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd, 449 Oxford Street, London
Printer: Chiswick Press
Sitter: Campfield, George, 1861, 1898

Published by Morris & Co. in 1911 to celebrate their 50th anniversary, this book provides a history of the company and a summary of their different products. Unbound copy, wrpaped in blue paper cover. It also contains photographs of the company’s factory at Merton Abbey and an image of their showroom at 449 Oxford Street. The illustration of ‘Washing Chints in the Wandle’ (p.43) was also published in Lewis F Day’s ‘William Morris and his Art’ (Art Journal, 1899), indicating that some, or all of this series of photographs of Merton Abbey are earlier than 1911.

The illustrations include:

‘The Indigo Vat’

‘Hand Weaving Looms at Merton Abbey’

‘Printing Morris Chintzes’

‘Washing Chintz in the Wandle’

‘Arras Tapestry Looms’

‘Stained Glass Painters at Work’ – George Campfield is the figure seated with his feet on a stool. He left Morris & Co. at the end of 1898 or in 1899 so this would date the photo to the late 1890s, when he was about 70 years old.

Details

Date: 1877
Dimensions: 55.5 x 46
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A256
Designer and maker: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This ‘predella’ panel is for the lower section of one of the four lights in a stained-glass window, depicting the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel in the upper part and scenes from their lives below in the north nave of Jesus College Chapel. The figures and scenes in this window were all by Burne-Jones, the prophets having originally been designed for a window in the east end of the north aisle of St Eustachius the Martyr, Tavistock, Devon (1875-76) where they appear in the middle tier.

Morris & Company’s eleven windows (1872-78) in the nave and transept of Jesus College Chapel, designed largely by Burne-Jones and Morris, are among the firm’s most spectacular commissions for stained glass. Burne-Jones’s Account Book (June 1877) records his charge of £10 for this cartoon.

The cartoon was subsequently used at All Hallows, Allerton, Liverpool (1879) and St. Stephen’s, Broughty Ferry, Angus, Scotland (1914).

Details

Date: 1890s
Dimensions: 8 x 7cm
Object Type: photograph
Material: photograph
Catalogue number: P710

May Morris sitting at an embroidery frame in her home, 8 Hammersmith Terrace. The walls are decorated with Morris & Co. ‘Apple’ wallpaper and the curtains made of ‘Bird and Anemone’ printed cotton. May moved to Hammersmith Terrace, which was not far from her parents home Kelmscott House, on her marriage to Henry Sparling in 1890. She ran the Morris & Co. embroidery department from here until her father’s death in 1896, when she left the firm to pursue her private commisions and work. Although May was divorced from Sparling in 1894 she continued to live in the house until 1923 when she moved full time to the Morris’s country home, Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordhsire.

Details

Date: c.1917-1925
Dimensions: 21.6 x 27.9
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Catalogue number: F182
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Owner: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Mary Ann Sloane, 1958

Morris &Co. pattern book containing 104 samples of 45 designs for printed cottons (several not designed by Morris) in various colourways. Bound in blue ‘Borage’ chintz. Stamped in gilt on front cover: MORRIS / 17, GEORGE ST. / HANOVER SQUARE / LONDON, W1. The pattern book was owned by May Morris.

Labels on inner front and back cover:
TO BE RETURNED TO
Morris & Company / Decorators, Ltd / 17 George Street, Hanover Square, / London, W1/

Hand Printed Cottons, / Linens and Taffetas. /

Larger Patterns of any of the enclosed will / be sent on application, should Customers wish / to see the full colouring and design. The Books / are to enable a first selection to be made. (underlined)

In Ordering please quote Numbers. Do not cut Patterns.

also inscribed in ink and pencil on inside of front cover:
No. 220

Contains the following samples:

African Marigold (x5)
Bird & Anemone (x7)
Bluebell (x2)
Bourne
Flowerpot (x2)
Brother Rabbit (x4)
Cherwell
Compton (x2)
Colling Trail
Corncockle
Cray (x4)
Daffodil (x3)
Eden (x2)
Evenlode (x2)
Eyebright (x2)
Haddon (x2)
Holkham
Honeysuckle (x7)
Kennet (x5)
Large Stem Twill (x2)
Lea (x3)
Little Chintz
Lodden (x4)
Marigold
Medway
Peony (x2)
Powdered
Rose (x2)
Rose & Thistle (x5)
Small stem Twill
Snakehead (x3)
Strawberry Theif
Sweet Briar
Tangley
Trent (x2)
Tulip (x7)
Tulip and Willow
Wandle
Wey
Willow Bough
Windrush (x6)
Yare (x2)
Large Stem Linen (x2)

Details

Date: 30.03.1904
Dimensions: 21.4 x 32
Object Type: archival
Material: pen on paper
Technique: hand-written
Catalogue number: J2201
Author: De Morgan, William (1839 - 1917)
Recipient: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Gift from the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 2015

This letter is a response from the ceramicist William De Morgan to an enquiry from Morris and Co. about the use of leadless glazes in his pottery. In the letter, (which he wrote from Florence, Italy) de Morgan describes how ‘twenty five years ago half my men were lead-poisoned in Chelsea and I determined either to put an end to poisonous glazes or to give up business all together‘.

De Morgan expresses some frustration in his letter to ‘the nonsense…being talked on the matter‘ of lead glazes. By the early twentieth century the issue of lead poisoning had become a significant matter of public concern. A wide body of scientific and medical information was produced concerning the danger to factory workers who came into contact with lead, as well as the use of lead paint in homes. This was picked up in the popular press and the health risks associated with lead became more widely known among ordinary people.

Lead glazes allow for a very shiny and transparent finish, which De Morgan’s ceramics were famed for. His relationship with Morris & Co. started in the 1860s when William Morris commissioned his friend to decorate tiles for his decorating firm. Later, Morris & Co. sold a large range of De Morgan’s ceramics which had become highly fashionable.

De Morgan was extremely knowledgeable on the subject of ceramic glazes- studying historic techniques used in the Middle East and Italy and experimenting in his workshop to produce high quality ceramics. In the letter he goes on to explain how he did not give up the use of lead- ‘all I found needful to be done was to make certain that the lead in our(?) mixture should be contained in a completely melted and insoluble glass before pulverizing- In this form it is as non-poisonous as the flint-glass (so called) tumbler or wine-glass out of which the whole world drinks without fear everyday‘. By melting the lead compounds with other materials such as silica to form a glass ‘frit’ or ‘flux’, lead glazes were much safer to use than the previous raw lead compounds since they were less soluble in stomach acids.

Details

Date: c.1911
Object Type: archival
Catalogue number: J2186
Publisher: Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd, 449 Oxford Street, London
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Kathleen Wells, 1957

Whilst the Coronation throne, known historically as St Edward’s throne is an ancient wooden chair used by British monarchs for centuries, other thrones are used during the ceremony and often made new for each monarch. The coronation of George V and his wife, Mary as king and queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and empress and emperor of India, took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on Thursday 22 June 1911. The king and queen’s enthronation throne (used following the crowning of the King on St. Edwards Chair) and footstall were covered in William Morris’s ‘St. Jamess’ design in a red silk damask and designed by the firm based on the James I throne at Knowle House. Morris & Co. exploited this commission for publicity purposes, issuing this brochure along with images of other royal furniture, such as the thrones used by the king and queen at the Investiture of H.R.H. The Prince of Wales which were designed and made by Morris & Co., as well as thrones made by Morris & Co., for ceremonies at Holyrood Palace, Scotland. Morris & Co. were also commissioned with the embroidered altar hanging used at Westminster Abbey during the oblation ceremony, in which the king and queen make an offering to God. The figures in the hangings were designed by William Lethaby and the pupils of the Royal College of Art.

Details

Date: 1896
Dimensions: 17 x 22
Object Type: photograph
Material: photograph
Catalogue number: P753
Photographer: Walker | Emery | 1851 | 1933
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Charles Bramley, 1962

Photograph of William Morris’s Library at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith. The interior of the room is filled with Morris’s substantial book collection. In the later years of his life, Morris spent a small fortune acquiring rare books. On the table is a large woodblock for a border of a page of a Kelmscott Press book, Morris’s private press. On the back shelves, other items collected by Morris are visible, including an Icelandic carved box and a 19th century round metal inlay box from Syria. Both these items, and the table, are now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries, Kelmscott Manor. The walls are papered with Jasmine wallpaper, designed by Morris in 1872. The fireplace is tiled with William De Morgan’s Sunflower tiles.

The photograph was taken by Emery Walker, Morris’s friend and collaborator, it is one of a series recording the interior of Kelmscott House.

Details

Date: 1890
Object Type: glass
Material: stained, painted, leaded glass
Catalogue number: C196.1
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1990

The panel was formerly in the lancet window on the north side of the sanctuary in Holy Trinity Church, Habergham Eaves, Burnley, Lancashire (now redundant). An inscription on the lower portion reads: “to the glory of god and in gratitude for special mercies d.d. maria shau 1874” The design for the window by Burne-Jones (BJ 143), present whereabouts unknown, was first used in the west window of the Cathedral, Calcutta (1873-75) and subsequently at:

Aldenham, Herts 1895;

Ashton-under-Lyne 1896;

Bensted (?) 1878:

Blackburn Cathedral 1889;

Brompton, Cumbria 1878;

Broughty Ferry, 1884;

Cheadle (Royal) 1909;

Chelsea 1894/5;

Cromer 1894,

Cullompton 1930;

Dundee (St.Mary) 1893;

Glasgow (Woodlands) 1902;

Heywood 1898;

Hillingdon (as Godliness) 1926;

Knotty Ash 1890;

Leek (All Saints) 1923; Leigh 1890;

Liverpool (Ullet Road) 1901;

Meole Brace 1894;

Montreal (Crescent Street) 1901;

Neston 1894;

Oxford ( Manchester College, as Faith) 1897;

Putney, All Saints 1884;

Whitfield 1930, Wilden 1907;

Wirksworth 1909

The design for the quarry roundels belongs to the WMG (BLA 441) The window was purchased as a pair with the “Dorcas” panel, designed by Ford Madox Brown and distributed by Morris & Co.

Details

Date: designed 1883
Dimensions: 25.7 x 72.4
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F304
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 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.

Details

Date: c.1888-98
Dimensions: 106.7 x 81.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware
Technique: hand-painted
Catalogue number: C6a
Designer: De Morgan, William (1839 - 1917)
Manufacturer: De Morgan, Sands End Pottery, Fulham, London, England
Credit notes: Presented by H.C. Mossop, 1941

This tile panel was designed by William De Morgan, the leading ceramicist of the Arts and Crafts movement. The panel is made up of 42 tiles and depicts a rearing lion painted in bold enamel colours. The lion is highly stylised with a large clawed paws and a sun-ray mane. The design demonstrates De Morgan’s admiration for Iranian and Ottoman Iznik tiles. The panel (and another see C6) was donated by H.C.Mossop, who’s sister Nellie Mossop painted tiles and other ceramics for De Morgan in the early years, when he was working at Orange House in Cheyne Walk. This tile panel was made after that period, at Sands End, Fulham, when De Morgan was in partnership with the architect Halsey Ricardo. An identical panel, with the design reversed and in different colours is also in the Gallery’s collection (see C6).

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: 1865
Dimensions: 48.9 x 30.8
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A7
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This was designed by Morris for the right-hand light of a pair of small windows in the chancel south side of St. Olave’s , Gatcombe in the Isle of Wight. The panel has quarries above and below, and an inscription: ‘And he was received up into heaven’. The companion light on the left shows the Maries at the Sepulchre with the inscription: ‘Very early in the morning the first day in the week’; the design for this is the same as that by Morris for St Michael’s Brighton, 1861.

The design was not used again elsewhere.

Details

Date: c. 1863
Dimensions: 101 x 50.8
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A5
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

The cartoon was designed by Morris for the East window of Bradford Cathedral c. 1863 (window installed 1864), where the figure appears in the third tier of the side lights. According to the Morris & Co. minute book (now in collection of Sandford L Berger, Huntingdon, California) under 1 April 1863, the cartoons for the single figures in the East window were allotted as follows:
“Rossetti: Jacob, Mary Magdalene, Martha a t £3 each; Ned: Virgin Mary, David at £3 each; Marshall: St. Peter, Moses, Solomon, Anna at £2 each; Morris: Elijah, Mary sister of Martha, Joseph at £2 each; Brown: Abraham, Isaac, Elizabeth, Paul if he will accept them”

Two sketch designs for the window are also in the collection of The Huntingdon; the first shows most of the figures only very roughly indicated, narrower borders, no diagonal bands of letter in in quarry backgrounds, and a series of seraphs with shields and scrolls in the tracery. The second sketch, much more carefully drawn, shows the window as executed except that the figures of Ezekial and Daniel in the bottom tier are in the opposite order.

The East window was altered when a new Lady chapel was added to the Cathedral built to the design of Sir Edward Maufe; following removal, cleaning and restoration, the stained glass was re-fitted in the 3 windows of the East window of the Lady chapel, in 1964.
Full details of the window are given in A. C. Sewter, op. cit. pp. 27-29.

Other cartoons used for this window, now at the WMG are as follows: St. Luke (A10), Moses (A12), Isaiah (A22) and Mary of Bethany (A23) and St Peter (A19).
The cartoon was used again in the following places: St Stephen’s Parish Church, near St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands in a Tree of Jesse window in the West window, centre lancet, bottom , 1864. All Saints, Coddington, near Newar, Nottinghamshire, South aisle East window left hand light of three-light window (in reverse), 1882.

Details

Date: 1862
Dimensions: 77.2 x 88
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A4
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

The cartoon is for part of the west window of St Michael and All Angels, Brighton, for which Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., provided an extensive scheme of windows. The lower part of the west window consists of 2 windows, each with 2 lancets, containing full length figures of the 4 Archangels, each pair of lancets having a hexafoil window above. The left hexafoil over the top of Michael and Raphael, shows St Michaesl in combat with the dragon; the right hexafoil, over top of Uriel and Gabriel, an Annunciation scene; high above in the gable is a rose window with central panel of the Virgin and Child surrounded by 7 angels within circles playing on bells.

The present cartoon, which was not used again elsewhere, is an adaptation of a similar design by Morris for a 2-light window in the chancel, south, of F F Bodley’s church, All Saints, Selsley, in Gloucestershire. In the 2-light Sesley window (cartoon 1861, window 1862) the figures of Gabriel and the Virgin are contained in panels set into square, patterned quarries, inscriptions running below each panel,with decorative tracery in the head of the window. The cartoons for the Selsley window were only used on one other occasion (St Stephen’s Parish Church near St Peter Port, Guernsey; top of right and left lancets in west window) and are now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, purchased from Morris & Co. 1940.
The figure of the angel Gabriel in both the Selsley and Brighton panels is an adaptation from Jan van Eyck’s figure of Gabriel.

A drapery study for the figure of the Virgin (by William Morris – S.H.) is in the Sanford L Berger collection, Huntingdon, California. (Illustrated in Sewter, plate 63 – S.H.)

For other cartoons used in this west window of St Michael and All Angels now in the WMG, see the full-length cartoon for the Archangel Raphael (A6) also designed by Morris.

According to extract from account book 1862-1872 , Morris Marshall and Co. were paid £34.10 shillings and 4 pence on October 2nd, 1862; £40. 17 shillings on March 27th, 1863; £34. 19 shillings on August 16th, 1864 (Glass, S. Aisle) for work for Saint Michael and All Angels, Brighton. (S.H. from file document).

Selwyn Image wrote in 1909: ‘ Brighton possesses the finest modern piece of stained glass that has ever been done… for the magnificence of its design the sense which it gave one of being in the presence of supernatural beings, the perfectness of its splendid colouring, and for everything that goes to make a fine stained glass window, this specimen seemed to be perfection.’

Details

Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A14
Artist: Morris & Co. Art-Workers Ltd., 17 George Street, Hanover Square, London
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This is the second of two panels of the subject designed by Morris, the other for which the cartoon is also in the WMG (A13) shows the Virgin Mary holding the swaddled baby Jesus at an altar with the High Priest beyond. Both were originally designed for the east window in the north aisle of St Chad’s, Bishop’s Tachbrook, Warwickshire by Morris . The window in the church is composed of two lights with a quadrilobe above; the two panels of the presentation are set into panels of patternwork designed by Philip Webb above and below hem, with four circles containing the symbols of the Evangelists: top left: the Angel of St Matthew, bottom left: the Lion of St Mark, top right, the Bull of St Luke and bottom right, the Eagle of St John, all by Philip Webb. Webb also desinged the Angus Dei symbol in the quadrilobe in the tracery above. The window has an inscription below: In Memory of John Garner who died Feby.iii MDCCCLXII.

The Firm’s Minute Book records under the date 18 March, 1863: “Small drawings for E window of aisle of Tachbrooke Ch: assigned to Morris for 15 shillings each and the corresponding cartoons for £2. 5 shillings. The date is confirmed by Warrington Taylor’s list (of stained glass undertaken by the Firm, 1863-68, a copy of which is among the Morris papers at the Birmingham City Art Gallery.

The sketch design in watercolour is in the collection of Berger Collection, Huntingdon, California, together with a drapery study for the figure of Simeon in the Presentation. The sketch-design shows the head and hands of Christ in place of the Agnus Dei in the tracery.
For an illustration of the Bishop’s Tachbrook window, see Sewter, op. cit. Vol 1, pl. 143. For other places where the cartoon was used: Knaresborough, Yorkshire, St John the Baptist (1873) Choir, South side: 3 light and tracery with figures in 2 tiers in main lights in bottom of right light under figure of Simeon. Note: Presentation in the Temple: Virgin and Child & High priest as in WMG A13 also used in the same window in bottom of centre light below figures of Virgin and Child.

See Literature: A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris & His Circle, Yale Univ. Press, 1974-75, Vol. 1, pl. 145; Vol. 2, pp. 21, 107-108, 128-129 and 312.

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