Cray Textile Printing Block

Details

Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: r350
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

Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: R343
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: R342
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: R322
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: r303
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: R300
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: R299
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: R260
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: R284
Manufacturer: Barrett's of Bethnal Green Road
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Gift of John Lewis Partnership, 1980

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

Object Type: printing block
Material: pearwood
Catalogue number: R259
Manufacturer: Barrett's of Bethnal Green Road
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Gift of John Lewis Partnership, 1980

Details

Date: 1919
Dimensions: 25 x 35
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W240
Artist: Wornum, Dulce ( - 1933)
Credit notes: Gift of Antony Little, 2017

Details

Date: 1919
Dimensions: 25 x 35
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W239
Artist: Wornum, Dulce ( - 1933)
Credit notes: Gift of Antony Little, 2017

Watercolour of the Morris & Co. George Street showroom. This watercolour was commissioned for use in a 1919 pamphlet advertising the move of the Morris & Co.’s showroom, two years previous from 449 Oxford Street to 17 George Street, Hanover Square. The move occured during the First World War in 1917 and was perhaps the reason that this pamphet was not published until 1919.
In this watercolour we can see how the showroom was designed to look like a living room, showcasing some of Morris & Co.’s most popular patterns, like Daisy and Fruit. We can also see a version of the Pilgrim in the Garden Tapestry hanging over the fireplace. This tapestry was first woven in 1901 based on a chalk drawing made by Brune-Jones in 1881 of a scene from the from the medieval poem Romaunt de la Rose.

Details

Date: 1904
Dimensions: 21 x 15 x 1 cm
Object Type: book
Material: paper in quarter holland binding
Catalogue number: K952
Printer: Dun Emer Press
Publisher: Yeats, Elizabeth (11/03/1868 - 16/01/1940)
Author: Yeats, William Butler (13/06/1865 - 28/01/1939)
Credit notes: Gift of Eleanor Pugh, 1963

This edition of the Stories of Red Hanrahan was published by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats at the Dun Emer Press, the private press founded in 1902 by Yeats and her brother William Butler Yeats in Dundrum, Ireland. Whilst living in London, Elizabeth Yeats had been part of William Morris’s circle and had been inspired by his Kelmscott press. The book has a handwritted inscription from Elizabeth Yeats to Dorothy Walker, wife of Emery Walker, one of the founders of the Kelmscott Press. The book was later given by Emery Walker to the artist, designer, writer and poet Selwyn Image.

Details

Date: 1872
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: J578
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG Purchase, 1956

Leather bound book containing leaves of illuminated manuscripts by William Morris, including trial pages for Horace, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and The Lovers of Gudrun. Facisimle pages are inserted at the back. The pages were given by Jane Morris to Sydney Cockerell. William Morris produced two illuminated manuscripts of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The first manuscript of the ‘Rubaiyat’ was made between spring 1871 and 16 October of the next year as a birthday present for Burne-Jones’s wife Georgiana (British Library, MS Add. 37832). The second (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don. f. 3), dated 1874, was a gift from May Morris in 1933. 

Details

Date: 1874
Dimensions: 56.8 x 54.7
Object Type: design
Material: pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A1067
Designer and maker: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Retailer: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Credit notes: Acquired by the William Morris Gallery with support from the Art Fund and additional support from the Resource/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery

Powdered was designed by William Morris in 1874. It takes it name from the relatively informal arrangement of meadow flower sprigs- unconnected by a linking devices- over the surface of the paper. Among the six flowers featured, rose, speedwell, pansy and cornflower have been identified.

From the late 1860s, Morris’s wallpapers became increasingly fashionable in Aesthetic and later, Arts & Crafts interior decoration. Morris responded to demand by continually adding to his forms range, so that his substantial output in the medium- some fifty patterns- reflects all phases of his designing career. Powdered is one of several mid-1870s designs featuring willow foliage, a favourite motif which Morris drew with endless inventiveness.

Details

Date: c.1929-32
Object Type: photograph
Catalogue number: P810
Sitter: Sheldrick, Percy

The art of high-warp weaving had almost died out in Britain until reintroduced by William Morris. The tapestry being woven here at Merton Abbey by Morris & Co. employee Percy Sheldrick is one of a series of six panels illustrating the legend of the Holy Grail. The original design was drawn by Edward Burne-Jones with the workshop assistants drawing the background detail. The first set of six were produced in 1894 for W.K. D’Arcy, an Australian mining millionaire. Later on further panels were woven for other clients. Between 1929-32 Percy Sheldrick (depicted here), with the help of Sidney Mears, wove The Summons and The Attainment from the Holy Grail series for Sir Henry Beacham of Lympne Castle near Hythe in Kent.

Details

Date: 1893
Dimensions: 20.3 x 25.4
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K927
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Editor: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Author: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Publisher: Allen, George
Credit notes: Miss Elinor M. Pugh Bequest, 1963

The Hobby Horse was founded chiefly to publish the aims and ideas of the Century Guild. With the exception of an article by Florence Marshall on a cantata by Henry Holmes, all the articles and poems in the first number were contributed by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, Herbert Horne and Sellwyn Image; the latter was also responsible for the textual illustrations and front cover (repeated as a title page) and the engraved wood block for this is in the Gallery collection (R104).
The magazine received some hostile reviews on its publication most notably in The Academy (1 June 1884 p. 401): “There may reasonably be some difference of opinion as to Mr. Ruskin’s recent utterances. But it has always been possible to gather an idea of that he would be about. There is no imaginable method, however, in the madness of some of his later followers. The affectation of these persons seems to be only commensurate with their ignorance and their conceit with their incapacity.” Having criticised both the content and the appearance of the magazine, the reviewer concluded that ” a long-suffering public could hardly tolerate another instalment of such nonsense.” It was probably largely as a result of such opinions that no further issues appeared until 1886.
The Gallery also has most of the engraved wood blocks and line blocks for printing the headings, tailpieces, initials and other illustrations for this and subsequent issues of the magazine. The majority of these were bequeathed in 1942 by Mackmurdo, the rest being acquired through the bequest of his niece, Miss Pugh in 1963.

Details

Date: 1893
Dimensions: 20.3 x 25.4
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K92
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Editor: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Author: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Publisher: Allen, George
Credit notes: Miss Elinor M. Pugh Bequest, 1963

Details

Date: 1904
Dimensions: 22 x 15 x 5 cm
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K349
Author: Burne-Jones, Georgiana (1840 - 1920)
Printer: Chiswick Press
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
Photographer: Walker & Cockerell (1900 - 1904)
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Reference Library, 1951

Details

Date: 1893
Dimensions: 30 x 21.3 x 5 (closed)
Object Type: book
Material: paper with half holland binding
Catalogue number: K1023
Author: Meinhold, William (1797 - 1851)
Translator: Speranza, Jane Francesca Agnes, Lady Wilde (1821 - 1896)
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Gift of West Ham Public Library

Details

Dimensions: 30 x 23.5 x 3
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K93
Publisher: Century Guild
Printer: Chiswick Press
Credit notes: Frank Brangwyn, 1936

INCOMPLETE. Vol. VI stops at p. 80 and continues in K94, Vol VII.
4to, modern buckram binding, cropped from original dimensions, gilt lettering on spine, twelve plates consisting of woodcut, engraving, facsimile and photogravure illustrations, loose leaf from ‘The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries’, Nov 23, 1893, inserted.

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