Kingfisher

Details

Date: c.1884
Dimensions: 91.4 x 81.3
Object Type: textile
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F79
Designer: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Retailer: Century Guild
Manufacturer: Simpson & Godlee
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

This design is one of the most iconic designs of the Century Guild. Known as ‘Angel with Trumpet’ or ‘Praise of the Soul’, it was designed by Herbert Horne and exhibited at a number of exhibitions for the Century Guild. Not all contemporary critics were impressed, one reviewer of the Manchester Royal Jubilee exhibition in the Journal of Decorative Art (Nov. 1887) described it as ‘at the best a very weak effort’. Nevertheless it is now seen as exemplifying the Guild’s swirling designs that preempted the Art Nouveau era. As well as a printed cotton it was also produced as a velveteen (see F40).

Details

Date: c.1884
Dimensions: 82.6 x 81.3
Object Type: textile
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F78
Designer: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Retailer: Century Guild
Manufacturer: Simpson & Godlee
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Details

Date: c.1884
Dimensions: 82.6 x 81.3
Object Type: textile
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F77
Designer: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Retailer: Century Guild
Manufacturer: Simpson & Godlee
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Details

Date: c.1863
Dimensions: 14.5 x 10.7
Object Type: print
Material: paper
Technique: wood engraving
Catalogue number: P459
Designer and maker: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Printer: Dalziel Bros
Credit notes: Presented by David Gould, Esq, 1954

This wood engraving by Edward Burne-Jones appeared in the May, 1863 issue of the magazine Good Words accompanying a poem called Summer Snow:

“Soft falls the summer snow,
On the springing grass drops light,
Not like that which long ago
Fell so deadly cold and white;
This wears the Rose’s flush,
Faint, ere bloom hath quite foregone her,
Soft as maiden’s timid blush,
With the looks she loves upon her.”

Another engraving also appeared in the May issue of Good Words by T S Morten called “An Orphan’s Family Christmas” showing the figure of a young girl leaning against a mantelpiece of a fire, bearing a strong similarity to this Burne-Jones illustration. It is also possible that Burne-Jones may have had an engraving by George du Maurier in mind when he designed the illustration for Good Words; entitled ‘Non Satis’ it appeared in ‘Once a Week’ in 1860 and shows a woman in a long dress standing by a trellis covered with flowers, stooping slightly to pluck a rose from a bush beside her.

Details

Date: c. 1884
Dimensions: 73.7 x 52
Object Type: furniture
Material: mahogany and satinwood
Catalogue number: G39
Designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Retailer: Century Guild

The working drawing for the inlay design of tulip flowers is also in the Gallery’s collection (catalogue no. A194 a-c), bequeathed by A H Mackmurdo. The same floral motif also appears on a Century Guild box, now in the Colchester & Essex Museum and was previously attributed to Selwyn Image. However, there is little stylistic similarity between this and other designs by Image for embroidery, stained glass and textual decoration in ‘The Hobby Horse’ the Century Guild’s magazine. It is more probable that the floral motif design is by Mackmurdo himself, or his associate Herbert Horne, who designed decoration on other items of Century Guild furniture; see G14 and for other Guild commissions, such as the ceiling inset with painted panels designed by Horne, formerly at Pownall Hall, Cheshire. The motif of flower sprays is in fact stylistically quite close to some designed by Horne as decorative tail-pieces on pages in ‘The Hobby Horse.’

Details

Date: c. 1890s
Dimensions: 73 x 240 x 121
Object Type: furniture
Catalogue number: G37
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1967

A similar table appears in the Morris & Co. catalogue, ‘Specimens of Furniture and Interior Decoration’ (c. 1911) p.23 where it is listed as ‘No 557 Handsome carved and inlaid dinner table designed by Mr George Jack.’ The table was available in either mahogany or Italian walnut at a cost of £45 (or £30 without inlay decoration). The inlay panels on the legs in the example shown in the catalogue are small decorative ovals instead of the roses and thistles in this table. The edge of the top is decorated with inlaid chevron banding, supported on four pairs of legs, the upper part of the legs turned in a twisting flute, the lower part tapering to a simple foot, with a centre section inlaid with roses and thistles. The two inner pairs of legs are joined by stretchers running front to back, with a central stretcher running the length of the table with A-shaped stretchers to outer pairs of legs at either end.

The table was also made in a smaller, square version, one example of which was originally made for Melsetter House, the Orkney home of the Middlemore family, designed by Philip Webb with Morris furnishings, and is now in a private collection, London.

Details

Date: c.1882
Dimensions: 96.5 x 48.3 x 49.5
Object Type: furniture
Material: mahogany, leather and brass
Catalogue number: G36a
Designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Retailer: Century Guild
Manufacturer: Collinson and Lock
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1966

The sinuous fretwork in the back of this chair caused a sensation when it was exhibited in 1885. It is now seen as an early precursor of Art Nouveau. Only five of these chairs are known to exist; two in the collection of the William Morris Gallery, one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, one in the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, and the fifth copy is shared between the Huntingdon Library / Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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