Letter

Details

Date: c. 1884
Dimensions: 23 x 23
Object Type: design
Material: pencil on tracing paper
Catalogue number: A194c
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

From a series of slight variations, this design is a working drawing for the inlaid motif in satinwood on the top of a circular mahogany table. The circular design features six tulips with stamens and leaves set inside a simple border. The mahogany table is also in the William Morris Gallery collection and shows that the final design was altered from this draft. The stamen lines emerging from the flower heads in this drawing were removed in the more restrained final design that can be seen on the table.

Details

Date: c. 1887
Dimensions: 50.2 x 66
Object Type: design
Material: pencil on tracing paper
Catalogue number: A163
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Credit notes: Macmurdo bequest, 1942

As a working drawing, this design does not show a finished piece but an initial plan for the upper part of a piece of furniture, possibly a pedestal table or writing desk. The pillar is illustrated in two ways, straight sided and bulbous, showing Mackmurdo’s thought process as he imagines how the final piece will look. The drawing is similar in idea to a number of pieces of furniture designed by Mackmurdo in the 1880s.

Details

Date: 1871
Dimensions: 55.6 x 76.5
Object Type: design
Material: pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A158b
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Halcyon House, Private Road, Bush Hill Park Estate, Enfield was designed and built by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo for his mother c.1875-1872. This architectural drawing shows the back elevation (south west) for Halcyon House with side view of the side gable end (north west), chimney and fenestrated gable ends, sash window and classical patterning. The house was demolished in 1968.

Details

Date: 1913
Object Type: ceramic
Technique: hand-painted
Catalogue number: C250
Designer: Jack, Margery (1894 - 1974)
Credit notes: Presented by June Randall, 2002

Margery Jack was the daugher of George Jack, Arts and Crafts architect and designer of furniture for Morris and Co., and Annie Jack, a skillled embroiderer. Margery and her twin sister Jessie were encouraged to be creative from a young age and this hand painted bowl was made when Margery was 19 years old. The floral decoration is handpainted in overglaze enamels on a white earthenware blank made by Wedgwood. Both Margery and Jessie studied at LCC Central School of Arts & Crafts where they attended the painting on china course. The course encouraged economic self-sufficency, students would purchase Wedgwood blanks from the college which they would decorate and fire in their kilns, students were then able to sell or keep the finished items.

Details

Date: c. 1906-09
Dimensions: 48.5 x 55.9
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: A153a
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

In the process of seeking funds to build this Village Hall for his local village of Great Totham, Maldon, Essex, Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo discovered the work of Rural Community Councils, and was involved in the forming of a similar initiative for his own community. The RCCs sought to protect and nurture the close-knit rural communities, in part by providing and maintaining communal spaces. This work was a response to the perceived encroachment of development from nearby towns and cities. Great Totham Village Hall was built c.1909 and is still in use today.

Details

Date: c. 1868-70
Dimensions: 89 x 33.5
Object Type: glass
Material: stained, painted, leaded glass
Catalogue number: C221ii
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Maker: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased with assistance from the V&A/MGC Purchase Grant Fund, Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 1997

This window is one of a pair (see C221i) made for The Grange, the home of Edward and Georgiana Burne-Jones built from November 1867.

The minstrel figures are from a set of twelve designed by William Morris in the mid-1860s. They were also used for painted tiles (e.g. for Novello & Co.’s shop in Berners Street, now in the V&A Museum) and, with the addition of wings, as Minstrel Angels in many church windows (e.g. at Furneaux Pelham Church, Hertfordshire). Since the figures in the Grange window are identical in size to those used for two tile panels, it seems likely that the cartoons were made directly from the tile drawings.

The ’round glass’ surrounding the figures is made of cast discs manufactured to simulate the appearance of spun glass roundels. This type of glazing, often seen in room interiors in 15th century Netherlandish paintings (e.g Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding), was a favourite motif in the Morris firm’s stained glass. Also notable is the use of ‘spolit ruby’ glass, with its swirling, ireegular, red colouring for the robe of the right-hand Minstrel.

A photograph (1887) by Frederick Hollyer and a watercolour (1898) by T.M. Rooke, both show the windows in situ in the Burne-Jones’s house. After Edward Burne-Jones’s death in 1898, the glass was re-installed at the family’s house in Rottingdean (1904/5), from where it was removed in the 1970s.

Details

Date: c. 1868-70
Dimensions: 89 x 33.5
Object Type: glass
Material: stained, painted, leaded glass
Catalogue number: C221i
Maker: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Puchased with assistance from the V&A/MGC Purchase Grant Fund, Friends of the William Morris Gallery

This window is one of a pair (see C221ii) made for The Grange, the home of Edward and Georgiana Burne-Jones built from November 1867.

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