Acanthus wallpaper

Details

Date: designed 1874, registered 22 July 1875
Dimensions: 111.8 x 57.2
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B1a
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Grainge, 1950

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 example was printed by Jeffrey & Co. for Morris & Co. and has the turquoise colourway ‘Acanthus 420’ written in blue crayon on the reverse. The right edge is stamped twice with the Morris & Co. registration mark and symbol.

Details

Date: c.1870s
Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: hand-painted overglaze earthenware
Catalogue number: C268
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased with assistance from the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 2010

William De Morgan’s sister-in-law Mrs A.M.W. Stirling recalled that he had said, ‘Morris never made but three designs for my execution, the Tulip and Trellis, the Poppy and another – I forget the name. I never could work except by myself and in my own manner.’ The ‘Tulip and Trellis’ design was, in fact, produced concurrently by both Morris’s firm and De Morgan. The Morris & Co. version was, however, painted solely in blue.

Details

Date: 1875-1880
Dimensions: 52.5 x 35.5
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BLA480
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

Kidderminster carpets are made by hand weaving two or three fabric layers together to form a single thick, flat cloth. Morris & Co.’s Kidderminster carpets were woven by the Heckmondwicke Manufacturing Company and were available in two or three ply. This design for Wreath was a three ply carpet. Morris was dissatisfied with by Heckmondwicke’s attempts to transfer his designs on to point paper to prepare it for the loom so he did the work himself, later training his own staff to achieve the quality he desired.

Details

Date: 1884
Dimensions: 70.2 x 67.3
Object Type: textile
Material: silk velvet brocaded with gilt thread
Technique: woven and block-printed
Catalogue number: F155
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1955

This was the most technically complicated textile Morris ever produced. It was woven at Merton Abbey on a special loom but took so long to weave that it was never put into commercial production. It was the only velvet Morris produced at Merton Abbey. The blue areas were block-printed onsite. Only 20 yards (1829cm) were woven in 1884, at a cost of £10 per yard before the enterprise was abandoned as too costly. The golden thread consists of gilt paper wrapped around a silk core. Another sample is in the V&A (T.4-1919). The pattern was inspired by sixteenth century Italian and Spanish broacaded velvets.

Details

Date: designed 1884, printed c.1940-50
Dimensions: 66.4 x 48.9
Object Type: wallpaper
Catalogue number: B20a
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Arthur Sanderson and Sons Ltd
Credit notes: Presented by Arthur Sanderson and Sons Ltd, 1950

William Morris frequently used tulips in his design for fabric and wallpaper. Here the small wild tulips form a mid ground with a foreground of ribbons of larger peonies intertwining with scrolling stems. Morris’s daughter May wrote how the character of this design was ‘all “Kelmscott” to me: the peony and the wild tulip are two of the richest blossomings of the spring garden at the Manor”. Kelmscott Manor was the Morris family’s country home in Oxfordshire.

Morris registered the design for ‘Wild Tulip’ wallpaper on 21st November 1884. The repeat is 64.8 x 26.7. This example in yellow ochre is trimmed and was printed by the firm Arthur Sanderson & Sons, after they bought the original woodblocks and designs from Morris & Co. when they closed in 1940.

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: 11.02.1876
Dimensions: 81.3 x 65.1
Object Type: design
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A39
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Despite Morris’s desire to create products using traditional handcrafts, he also designed carpets to be manufactured by machine. Morris’s machine-woven carpets were of a higher quality than other commercially available examples and were used in many fashionable homes. ‘Honeycomb’, one of five carpet designs registered in 1876, is a woven wool carpet that was manufactured by H.C. McCrea and later at Morris’s own premises at Merton Abbey. ‘Honeycomb’ is relatively unusual among Morris’s patterns in so boldly emphasising the underlying stucture of the design rather than the floral/foliage motifs. Any risk of too geometric a character is avoided, however, by the skilful interweaving of the willows and flower-heads with the hexagons, like plants growing against a masonry wall.

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?’

Details

Date: 1885
Dimensions: 307 x 156
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on cotton lining
Catalogue number: F139
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Retailer: Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd, 449 Oxford Street, London
Maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Maker: Sleath, William
Maker: Knight, W.H.
Credit notes: WMG purchase with assistance from the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1953

Designed by William Morris, this high-warp tapestry, depicts a fruit tree with a bird and woodpecker in its branches, the trunk wound round with scrolling acanthus leaves and side borders of honeysuckle growing around tree trunks and a line of text at top and bottom written in Gothic script on scrolls: “i once a king and chief, now am the tree barks thief,/ever twixt trunk and leaf chasing the prey”. The text refers to the classical legend of Picus, one of the ancient kings of Italy, who refused to be seduced by Circe and she in revenge turned him into a woodpecker.

By the mid-1880s tapestry designs at Morris & Co. were largely a collaborative effort with groups of artists working together on the design. However, this tapestry is unusual in that is was designed entirely by William Morris and woven at Merton Abbey under his strict supervision. It was woven at Merton Abbey, Morris & Co.’s factory in 1885 by WH Knight and William Sleath. It was bought by Sir Bryan Peters and hung for a number of years in the billiard room at 24 Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, the home of George Prothero, President of the Royal Historical Society. The inscription was embroidered by May Morris and assistants.

A trial weaving of a similar honeysuckle border is in the V&A.

Details

Date: 1893
Dimensions: 20.6 x 14 (closed)
Object Type: book
Material: paper with half holland binding
Catalogue number: K5
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Printer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Gere | Charles March | 1869 | 1957
Maker: Hooper, William Harcourt (1834 - 1912)
Seller: Reeves & Turner
Credit notes: Transferred from Walthamstow Central Library, 1950

Morris’s ‘News From Nowhere’ was first published in serial form in The Commonweal , January – October 1890. In 1891, it was reprinted in book form by Reeves and Turner. It was from this later edition with a few corrections that the text for the Kelmscott Press edition was set up. The illustrated frontispiece, designed by Charles March Gere, shows the entrance to Kelmscott Manor, Morris’s country home on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border near Lechlade, after which he named his house in Hammersmith and the Press itself. 300 copies printed on paper at 2 guineas, 10 on vellum at 10 guineas.

Details of the wood engraving are as follows:
‘View of the entrance to Kelmscott Manor’
wood engaving 11.4 x 10.5 cm.
Monogrammed lower right CMG

Flagged footpath leading up to doorway of stone built house with gabled front, another wing of the house right and rose trees flanking path.

The inscription below (in upper case Golden type0:
THIS IS THE PICTURE OF THE OLD / HOUSE BY THE THAMES TO WHICH / THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY WENT. / HEREAFTER FOLLOWS THE BOOK IT- / SELF WHICH IS CALLED NEWS FROM / NOWHERE OR AN EPOCH OF REST & / IS WRITTEN BY WILLIAM / MORRIS

The inscription and lettering set in narrow border of scrolling leaves were designed by Morris.

The illustration was used again, without border and with title below: A VIEW OF THE MANOR HOUSE AT KELMSCOTT IN OXFORDSHIRE, FROM THE GARDEN GATE in the small booklet “Gossip about an old house on the Upper Thames by William Morris” printed by the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft Press in November 1895.

Details

Date: designed 1876, manufactured post 1917
Dimensions: 64.7 x 96.5
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F366
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1994

This printed fabric shows how Morris learnt from contemporary cottons imported from India, particularly in the strongly contrasting reds and blues, and the way the three-dimensional forms of flowers and leaves could be transformed into flat patterns.

Morris admired the fact that Indian cottons were hand-printed with natural, rather than chemical, dyes. In Britain knowledge of how to produce dyes from plants and vegetables was fast disappearing; most textile manufacturers found chemical dyes cheaper and easier to use. But Morris felt natural colours had a richness lacking in chemical dyes, and spent ten years working with a Staffordshire silk dyer named Thomas Wardle to revive their use.

Seven printing blocks (the pattern required four blocks) used to print this fabric are in the Gallery’s collection.

Details

Date: 1879
Dimensions: 18.2 x 46.5
Object Type: design
Catalogue number: BLA451
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

This design shows one half of the pattern for Dove and Rose, intended for a woven double cloth. The design is formed of leaves, stems, rose sprays, acorns and doves in green and red.

At Merton Abbey, Morris & Co.’s textile workshop, Morris had installed hand-operated jacquard looms, which partly automated the weaving process. Large orders were sub-contracted to companies that used steam-powered looms. Morris welcomed technological progress that genuinely saved repetitive labour without compromising the quality of the final product. He believed that “it is the allowing of machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays”.

To weave the ‘Dove and Rose’ textile, Morris’s original design was painted on point-paper. This was used to make a series of punch cards, which were fed into the loom and controlled the production of the pattern. Morris felt uneasy about subjecting his employees to the “deafening clatter” of the weaving shed, but accepted it as a necessary evil to produce fine fabrics in silk and wool.

Details

Date: 1864
Dimensions: 74.9 x 55.9
Object Type: design
Material: sepia wash and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A8
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

This design is for part of a large stained glass window in the church of All Saints, Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire. It shows Eve (the figure on the left) walking behind the Virgin Mary in a reference to the Christian doctrine that celebrates Mary as the redeemer of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden. The figures are set against rich foliage—typical of Morris’s talent for creating flat, decorative pattern, and small flowers are visible at their feet, perhaps inspired by Morris’s knowledge of millefleur motifs found in medieval tapestry. This design is a working drawing and is annotated with instructions, such as ‘R’ indicating the use of red glass for the inner layer of the Virgin’s robe.

Stained glass was one of William Morris’s first artistic pursuits and an important product in the early days of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., the interior decoration firm that Morris established in 1861. Morris leased premises at 8 Red Lion Square, London, and installed a kiln for firing glass and tiles in the basement. While Morris did not make the glass himself, preferring instead to order glass from more established companies such as James Powell & Sons, he breathed new life into the revival of historic stained glass techniques that was gathering pace in the nineteenth century. Key characteristics of Morris’s stained glass are an interest in simple forms reminiscent of medieval examples, the use of earthy, jewel-like colours, and the placement of pieces of coloured, ‘pot glass’ within a lead framework, creating patterns and images through a mosaic technique, as well as painting directly on to plain glass.

The cartoon was first designed by Morris for the chancel East window church of All Saints, Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire, erected in 1865. The cartoon of Eve and the Virgin was used only once again, at Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland, in the North Church (Old West Kirk) in 1865 for the window in the west gable. The window has 4 lights and tracery, with 3 tiers of subjects, Eve and the Virgin being used for a panel in the bottom tier at left. The window also used the cartoons of the Angel with cymbals and Angel with lunette dulcimer designed by Burne-Jones and originally used at Lyndhurst in Hampshire. The church was demolished in 1926 to make room for shipyard extensions, the glass being re-fitted in the new church in Campbell Street.

Details

Date: 1861
Dimensions: 51 x 41
Object Type: drawing
Material: pencil and ink on paper
Catalogue number: D223
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Sitter: Morris (née Burden) | Jane | 1839 | 1914
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1955

Originally thought to depict Iseult boarding a ship from the classic chivalric romance ‘Tristan and Iseult’, this portrait of Jane Morris in medieval costume is instead most likely to be a depiction of her as Helen of Troy. Morris chose the subject of ‘Tristan and Iseult’ for the mural he painted in the Oxford Union library building from 1857-1859, he created various sketches for the scene over the summer of 1857 and began work on his only easel painting on a similar theme, ‘La Belle Iseult’, now in the Tate collection.

However, this drawing’s paper is watermarked with the date of 1861 which places it after the Oxford Union murals were completed. Instead it is more likely to be a study for a mural planned for the staircase at Red House depicting the Trojan War. In the drawing Jane is climbing a small ladder to enter a ship, a likely reference to Helen of Troy whose great beauty, according to legend, triggered the Trojan War.

Morris’s interest in pattern design is already evident in the elaborate sleeve lining shown in this piece. Jane was a talented needlewoman and may well have made this costume herself.

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: 1880s
Dimensions: 64.5 x 47.5
Object Type: glass
Material: stained, painted, leaded glass
Catalogue number: C201
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Acquired with the assistance of the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, The Art Fund, The Friends of the William Morris Gallery, Bancroft's and West Essex Decorative & Fine Art Societies, 1992

There are two versions of the minstrel design. The original cartoon for the minstrel figure was drawn by William Morris in 1868 for the East window of St.John’s church, Dalton, Yorkshire. This version, in which the minstrel has wings, was for a series of minstrel angels subsequently re-used in many Morris & Co. windows. [e.g. Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge (south transept south window tracery, 1873), Llandaff Cathedral (nave, south aisle, tracery, 1869), Hopton-on-Sea, Norfolk (east window 1882). The winged version of the design was numbered WM 40 in the Morris & Co. Catalogue of Designs. It was also used for the painted organ screen executed by Morris & Co. for Beddington Church, Surrey in 1869.

At some point this panel has been altered to fit a new window space, and in doing so, some areas of the border and background appear to have been re-shaped. The lower part of the figure, including the hem of the robe, the ankles and the feet, have been removed along with most of the green base representing grass. The stained glass was sold by the Estate of Mrs. Joan Sibley. Mrs Sibley had installed the panel along with another Morris & Co. panel (Mary Virgin by Burne-Jones, lot 101 in the same Christie’s sale) in her house at Whitehills, Banfshire when she moved there following the death of her husband. Previously, both panels had been in their home at Petworth, West Sussex. Prior to this, both panels were in a 1930s suburban house in Surbiton, which had been purchased by Mr and Mrs Sibley. The former owner of the Surbiton house had purchased the panels some time between c.1900 and c.1930.

Details

Date: designed 1883
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: NN406
Designer: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.

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.

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

Date: designed 1883
Dimensions: 54 x 56
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B52a
Designer: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1955

Details

Date: designed 1883
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: NN405
Designer: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.

Details

Date: 5.1877
Object Type: archival
Catalogue number: J143
Designer and maker: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs. J,W. Mackail, 1946

William Morris’s original hand written manuscript on the Eastern Question Association (May 1877). The finished tract read:

Friends and fellow-citizens:–
there is danger of war; bestir yourselves to face that danger. If you go to sleep, saying we do not understand it, and the danger is far away you may wake and find the evil fallen upon you, for even now it is at the door. Take heed in time and consider it well, for a hard matter it will be for most of us to bear war taxes, war prices, war losses of wealth and work, and friends and kindred; we shall pay heavily, and you, friends of the working classes, will pay the heaviest.

And what shall we buy at this heavy price? Will it be glory and wealth and peace for those that come after us?

Alas! no; for those are the gains of a just war; but, if we wage the unjust war that fools and cowards are bidding us wage to-day, our loss of work will buy us loss of hope, our loss of friends and kindred will buy us enemies from father to son.

“An unjust war!” I say: for do not be deceived; if we go to war with Russia now, it will not be to punish her for evil deeds done, or to hinder her from evil deeds hereafter, but to put down just insurrection against the thieves and murderers of Turkey; to stir up a faint pleasure in the hearts of the no-nothing fools that cry out without meaning for a “spirited foreign policy,” to guard our well-beloved rule in India from the coward fear of an invasion that may happen a hundred years hence – or never; to exhibit our army and navy once more before the wondering Eyes of Europe; to give a little hope to our holders of Turkish bonds:– Working-men of England, which of these things do you think worth starving for, worth dying for? Do all of them rallied into one make that body of ENGLISH INTERESTS we have heard of lately?

And who are they who flaunt in our faces the banner inscribed on one side “ENGLISH INTERESTS,” and on the other “RUSSIAN MISDEEDS?” Who are they that are leading us into war? Let us look at these saviours of England’s honour, these champions of Poland, these scourgers of Russia’s iniquities! Do you know them? Greedy gamblers on the Stock Exchange, idle officers of the army and navy (poor fellows!), worn-out mockers of the clubs, desperate purveyors of exciting war news for the comfortable breakfast tables of those who have nothing to lose by war; and lastly, in the place of honour, the Tory Rump, that we fools, weary of peace, reason, and justice, chose at the last election to represent us; and above all their captain, the ancient place-hunter, who, having at last climbed into an earl’s chair, grins down thence into the anxious face of England, while his empty heart and shifty head is compassing the stroke that will bring on – our destruction perhaps, our confusion certainly. O shame and double shame if we march under such leadership as this in an UNJUST WAR against a people who are NOT our enemies, against Europe, against freedom, against nature, against the hope of the world.

Working men of England, one word of warning yet. I doubt if you know the bitterness of hatred against freedom and progress that lies at the hearts of a certain part of the richer classes in this country; their newspapers veil it in a kind of decent language, but if you were to hear them talking among themselves, as I have done, I know not whether scorn or anger would prevail in you at their folly and insolence. These men cannot speak of your order, of its aims, of its leaders, without a sneer or an insult. These men, if they had the power (may England perish rather!) would thwart your just aspirations, would silence you, would deliver you bound hand and foot for ever to irresponsible capital. And these men, I say it deliberately, are the heart and soul of the party that is driving us to an UNJUST WAR. They can harm us but little now; but if war comes, UNJUST WAR, with all its confusion and anger, who shall say what their power may be, what step backward we may make. Fellow-citizens, look to it, and if you have any wrongs to be redressed, if you long to lessen those inequalities whihc have been our stumbling block since the beginning of the world, then cast aside sloth, and cry out against an UNJUST WAR, and urge us of the Middle Classes to do no less, so that we may all protest solemnly and perseveringly against out being dragged (and who knows for why?) into an UNJUST WAR, in which, if we are victorious, we shall win shame, loss and rebuke, and if we are overpowered – what then?

Working-men of England, I do not believe that in the face of your strenuous opposition, the opposition of those men whom War most concerns, any English Government will be so mad as to wrap England and Europe in an UNJUST WAR.

“A LOVER OF JUSTICE.”

Details

Date: designed 1892, printed c.1950
Dimensions: 102 x 57.2
Object Type: wallpaper
Catalogue number: B2a
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Arthur Sanderson and Sons Ltd
Credit notes: Presented by Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd, 1950

This wallpaper was designed by William Morris in 1892. The title is named after the cornflowers which were known in folklore as Bachelor’s Button as they were worn by young men in love.

This version was printed using original Morris & Co. blocks by the firm Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd. in 1950, after they acquired the blocks from Morris & Co. when they closed in 1940. It is stamped down the right edge: ‘MORRIS & Co’ and has a label with the Sanderson colourway ‘Bachelor’s Button 300’.

Details

Dimensions: 29 x 45
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F408
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased from Haslam & Whiteway, 1998

This is one of two trial samples of Dove and Rose in silk brocade, an almost identicle piece is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (T.26-1919). Dove and Rose was normally produced in silk and wool double cloth. The design is formed of leaves, stems, rose sprays, acorns and doves in green and red. According to Morris, writing in a letter to Rosalind Howard, the structure of double cloth made it suitable only for curtains and hangings rather than upholstery.

The cloth was first woven by outworkers at Alexander Morton & Co. Later, at Merton Abbey, Morris & Co.’s textile workshop, Morris installed hand-operated jacquard looms, which partly automated the weaving process. Large orders were sub-contracted to companies that used steam-powered looms. Morris welcomed technological progress that genuinely saved repetitive labour without compromising the quality of the final product. He believed that “it is the allowing of machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays”.

To weave the ‘Dove and Rose’ textile, Morris’s original design was painted on point-paper (see original design in WMG: BLA451). This was used to make a series of punch cards, which were fed into the loom and controlled the production of the pattern. Morris felt uneasy about subjecting his employees to the “deafening clatter” of the weaving shed, but accepted it as a necessary evil to produce fine fabrics in silk and wool. According to Morris, writing in a letter to Rosalind Howard, the structure of this fabric made it suitable only for curtains and hangings rather than upholstery.

Details

Date: Designed 1879
Dimensions: 66 x 91.4
Object Type: textile
Material: wools and silks on silk
Catalogue number: F28
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Dove and Rose was produced in silk and wool double cloth. The design is formed of leaves, stems, rose sprays, acorns and doves in green and red. According to Morris, writing in a letter to Rosalind Howard, the structure of double cloth made it suitable only for curtains and hangings rather than upholstery.

The cloth was first woven by outworkers at Alexander Morton & Co., Darvel, Scotland. Later, at Merton Abbey, Morris & Co.’s textile workshop, Morris installed hand-operated jacquard looms, which partly automated the weaving process. Large orders were sub-contracted to companies that used steam-powered looms. Morris welcomed technological progress that genuinely saved repetitive labour without compromising the quality of the final product. He believed that “it is the allowing of machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays”.

Details

Date: 1896
Dimensions: 24.4 x 15.5
Object Type: photograph
Catalogue number: P897
Photographer: Walker | Emery | 1851 | 1933
Credit notes: Gift of Dorothy Walker

This photograph depicts the the Morris’s dining room at Kelmscott House in 1896, photographed by Morris’s friend and neighbour Emery Walker. A large seventeenth-century Iranian ‘vase’ carpet from Kerman hangs from the wall, now in the V&A. In front is an Italian cypress chest (now in the Fitzwilliam) laid out with various decorative items, including two nineteenth century Iranian brass incense burners in the shape of peacocks (now at Kelmscott Manor), two brass plates leaning against the wall, two Hispano-moresque plates lying flat, two brass candlesticks and a large Iranian lidded metal bowl in between.

The photograph was given to the Gallery by Dorothy Walker, Emery Walker’s daughter.

Details

Date: designed c.1867-7, manufactured c.1904
Dimensions: 182.9 x 259.1
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on cotton warp
Technique: machine-woven
Catalogue number: N3
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Heckmondwike Manufacturing Co. Yorkshire
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Gift of Dr & Mrs Charles Newman, 1954

Tulip and Lily was designed by William Morris around 1867-7. He registered the design a year or so later on 27th December 1878, after a number of firms started copying the design. The flat woven flooring is 3-ply wool and was woven in Yorkshire for Morris & Co. by Heckmondwike Manufacturing Co. The carpet as available in various colourways, predominantly green. The carpet was 36 inches wide (91.5cm) and also available for stair caperpets, this version has a border and was acquired from Morris & Co. in 1904.

Details

Date: c. 1879
Dimensions: 28 x 69
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F409
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased from Haslam & Whiteway, 1998

William Morris designed Flower Garden in 1879. He described it in a letter to a Georgiana Burne-Jones on 4 March 1879: ‘I am…in a whirlwind of dyeing and weaving, and…rather excited by a new piece…which looks beautiful, like a flower garden’. Morris claims to have chosen the colours to ‘suggest the beauties of inlaid metal’. They were almost certainly influenced by a display of items from Damascus he had studied in a dealer’s shop in London in 1878.

Details

Date: Designed 1879
Dimensions: 51.4 x 68.9
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F199
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Presented by Miss E Pugh, 1961

William Morris designed Flower Garden in 1879. He described it in a letter to Georgiana Burne-Jone on 4 March 1879: ‘I am…in a whirlwind of dyeing and weaving, and…rather excited by a new piece…which looks beautiful, like a flower garden’. Morris claims to have chosen the colours to ‘suggest the beauties of inlaid metal’. They were almost certainly influenced by a display of items from Damascus he had studied in Vincent J. Robinson’s shop in London in 1878.

Details

Date: 1870-1911
Dimensions: 26 x 9.5 x 6
Object Type: textile
Technique: embroidery
Catalogue number: H56a&b
Owner: Morris, May
Credit notes: Transfer from Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 2011

These slippers were possibly acquired by May or Jane Morris during their trip to Egypt in 1896-97, but more likely by May during a solo trip to Morocco in 1911. May departed England in October 1911 for a three week trip on the H.M.P.S Agadir to Madeira and the coast of Morrocco. The slippers were donated to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter in 1939 after May’s death by Mary Lobb, May Morris’s companion, and were part of a larger collection of mainly Icelandic material. The collection was transferred to the William Morris Gallery in 2012.

Details

Date: c.1880s
Dimensions: 66 x 69.2
Object Type: design
Material: sepia wash and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A43
Artist: Morris & Co.
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

This pencil design is for a carpet (see William Morris Gallery N17), possibly the first to be made at William Morris’s textile factory at Merton Abbey. The partial sketch demonstrates how Morris would build patterns by repeating sections, carefully illustrating only what was necessary to construct the full image. In the final piece, the central pattern is mirrored to create a symmetrical effect, whilst the surrounding borders feature curling plant stems and acanthus leaves.

In the late 1870s, Morris wrote to a friend, “I am studying birds now to see if I can’t get some of them into my next design”. A number of designs incorporating birds followed, including this energetic pair of squawking peacocks.

Details

Date: c. 1890
Dimensions: 101.6 x 228.6
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on cotton
Technique: hand-knotted
Catalogue number: N7
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss M. L. Wooldridge, 1955

Hand-knotted Hammersmith rug with stylised floral border enclosing a central panel of scrolling flowers and leaves. A version was exhibited at the 1899 Arts & Crafts exhibition and another commissioned from Morris’s friend by A.A. Ionedes, for his house at 1 Holland Park, London. Another example is in the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest. The border design of ‘Little Tree’ also features on a number of other carpet designs made by Morris & Co.

This rug was given to the Gallery by Martha Wooldridge, (1863-1958) a classical dancer who purchased it around 1898 for her home, the Arts & Crafts House called ‘Wavertree’ in St Margarets, Twickenham, which she shared with the radical preacher Stewart Headlam.

Details

Date: c. 1890
Dimensions: 203.2 x 111.8
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on cotton
Technique: hand-knotted
Catalogue number: N6
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss M. L. Wooldridge, 1955

Hand-knotted Hammersmith rug with stylised floral border enclosing a central panel of scrolling flowers and leaves. Most Hammersmith rugs were made of wool but this example is made of mohair, providing a lustrous effect. It was given to the Gallery by Martha Wooldridge, (1863-1958) a classical dancer who had been left it by the radical preacher Stewart Headlam, whom she lived with in an Arts & Crafts House called ‘Wavertree’ in St Margarets, Twickenham (Headlam is perhaps most famous for putting up half of Oscar Wilde’s bail when he was tried for ‘gross indecency’ in 1885).

Details

Date: 1913
Dimensions: 113 x 76
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A1396
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Credit notes: Gift of John Brandon Jones, 1997

The architect Halsey Ricardo (1854-1928) built 8 Addison Road, Kensington for Sir Ernest Debenham, the department store owner and his family. The house was elaborately decorated and includes work by Ernest Gimson, William Aumonier and E.S. Prior as well as extensive series of tiled fireplaces and surfaces by William De Morgan (with whom Ricardo had been in partnership). In March 1912, Ricardo asked George Jack to design and prepare cartoons for part of the mosaic decoration of the main hall of the house, and also to design the carved marble balustrade around the first floor gallery space. The following month Jack travelled to Italy with his friend Thomas Hamilton Crawford to make a study of Byzantine mosaics in preparation for the work. Jack’s final designs incorporates floral patterns of both Persian, Ottoman and Byzantine influence.

Details

Date: 1913
Dimensions: 720 x 620 mm (framed)
Object Type: design
Material: pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A1401
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Credit notes: Gift of John Brandon Jones, 1997

Details

Date: c.1888-1898
Dimensions: 81.3 x 61
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware
Catalogue number: C7b
Artist: De Morgan, William (1839 - 1917)
Manufacturer: De Morgan, Sands End Pottery, Fulham, London, England
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

This panel is one of three in the Gallery’s collection, and part of a more extensive series designed by William De Morgan for the P&O cruise liner SS Arabia. The stylised fruit trees are contained in a niche shape, reminiscent of Iranian and Iznik tiles that De Morgan studied and admired. The tiles are marked on the reverse with the firm’s logo, a Tudor rose with ‘Wm. De Morgan & Co. Sands End Pottery Fulham’. De Morgan was commissioned by the ship’s architect Thomas Calcutt, and the panels formed a decorative frieze around a public area, or companionway, of the liner. By the 1880’s, steamships had become a popular and luxurious way to travel, and P&O employed specialist architects and designers to create sumptuous interiors for their more prestigious ships. De Morgan designed for twelve P&O cruise ships between 1882-90.

Details

Date: c.1888-1898
Dimensions: 81.3 x 61
Object Type: ceramic
Material: hand-painted overglaze earthenware
Catalogue number: C7a
Artist: De Morgan, William (1839 - 1917)
Manufacturer: De Morgan, Sands End Pottery, Fulham, London, England
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Details

Date: c.1888-1898
Dimensions: 106.7 x 81.2
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware
Technique: hand-painted
Catalogue number: C6
Artist: 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 C6a) 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 C6a).

Details

Date: 1881
Dimensions: 97.5 x 57
Object Type: design
Material: ink and watercolour
Catalogue number: A240
Illustrator: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This large illustration is one of 17 (See A234-A242) used by William Morris to illustrate his lecture ‘Some Hints on Pattern Designing’ given at the Working Men’s College, London on 10 December 1881. The patterns derive mainly from plates illustrating similar motifs in the Egyption section of Owen Jones ‘Grammer of Ornament’. This particulalar illustration is a close copy of a similar motif in Jones’ ‘Grammer of Ornament’ from the Assyrian and Persian Art Section, pl.XII no 14.

Details

Date: 1881
Dimensions: 67 x 77.7
Object Type: design
Material: ink and watercolour
Catalogue number: A237
Illustrator: Morris, William, 1834, 1896

This large illustration is one of 17 (See A234-A242) used by William Morris to illustrate his lecture ‘Some Hints on Pattern Designing’ given at the Working Men’s College, London on 10 December 1881. The patterns derive mainly from plates illustrating similar motifs in the Egyption section of Owen Jones ‘Grammer of Ornament’. In fact this particulalr illustration is a close copy of a similar motif in Jones’ ‘Grammer of Ornament’ from the Egyptian Section, pl.IV no 16.

Details

Date: c. 1860-80s
Dimensions: 16.5 x 13.5
Object Type: textile
Material: silk
Catalogue number: F341

This type of purse, also known as ‘Aleppo purses’ were woven in workshops in Zouk Mikael in Mount Lebanon, a town north of Beirut. It was probably made around 1860-1880, during which time Mount Lebanon was under Ottoman rule. The bag is woven in coloured silks in tapestry, the front and back feature a tulip and leaf motif with other small flower heads, they would have been woven one above the other on the same warp threads on a horizontal loom called a nawl. The bag would have been sent to Aleppo or Istanbul for finishing, in this case with silk plaited handles and three silk tassels, pale sky-blue silk lining with flap at top closed by silk covered button. The bag was acquired by the Gallery at Auction, along with other bags once belonging to May Morris.

Details

Date: 1900
Dimensions: 6.5 diameter
Object Type: sculpture
Material: bronze
Catalogue number: S57
Artist: Chaplain, J. C. (1839 - 1909)
Credit notes: WMG purchase , 2000

The Chadwicks 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 present medallion was sold together with other items, which included: 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 booklet on Indigo: Its Application in Dyeing and Printing by Dr M Liebert of Meister Lucius & Bruning Ltd. (Pubd. Furstenhagen & Brown, Bradford, n.d.)

Details

Date: first issued 1868-70, printed 1968
Dimensions: 119.7 x 55.9
Object Type: wallpaper
Catalogue number: B102
Attributed designer: Gilbert Scott, George, Sir (1811 - 1878)
Manufacturer: Arthur Sanderson and Sons Ltd
Credit notes: Presented by Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd, 1968

This design was originally thought to have been based on Indian designs for painted/embroidered furnishings, or adapted from an earlier 18th century wallpaper by William Morris. However it is now attributed to George Gilbert Scott Jnr because of a reference in a letter (Victoria and Albert Museum, London: National Art Library) from the Firm’s business manager Warrington Taylor to Philip Webb in 1869, making reference to ‘Scott’s “Indian”‘. In 1874 Scott was one of the founders of Watts & Co who issued wallpapers in a similar style. The pattern repeat is 63.5 x 50.8 cm.

This version was printed in 1968, using original Morris & Co. blocks by the firm Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd., who acquired the blocks from Morris & Co. when they closed in 1940. The Sanderson colourway number ‘138770 Indian’ is on the reverse with the price of 38 shillings.

Details

Date: c.1880
Object Type: glass
Material: stained, painted, leaded glass
Catalogue number: C228
Designer: Whall, Christopher Whitworth (1849 - 1924)
Manufacturer: W.G. Saunders & Company
Merchant

Part of a series of three stained glass windows made for St.Ethelreda’s Church, an important medieval building which was built as the London chapel of the Bishops of Ely. Whall was attached, as a layman, to the Rosminian religious community at St. Ethelreda’s and was asked to design the glazing of the nave windows of the church, his first commission in stained glass. Disagreements between Whall and Saunders resulted in Whall losing the commission. At some point between the early 1880s and 1900, the panel was removed from the church and was later found in storage at the Rosminian Convent in Loughborough. The panel was conserved in 1999 with a grant from the Glazier’s Trust.

Details

Date: c.1930s
Dimensions: 286 x 76
Object Type: design
Material: charcoal and grey wash on paper
Catalogue number: A835
Artist: Whall, Veronica (1887 - 1967)
Credit notes: Gift of C.J. Whall, 1973

This design depicts Sir Galahad, one of the main protagonists in the Legend of King Arthur stories. Veronica Whall designed 72 windows depicting the tales of King Arthur for King Arthur’s Hall, Tintagel, Cornwall. The building was designed in the 1930s by Frederick Thomas Glasscock as a meeting place for Arthurian devotees to exchange interpretations of medieval literature. This design depicts Sir Galahad, one of the main protagonists in the Legend of King Arthur stories.

Veronica Whall was the daughter of Christopher Whall, she began assisting her father in her early teens. In the 1900’s she attended classes, including Edward Johnston’s in lettering and calligraphy, at the Central School of Arts & Crafts. With her brother, Hew Bernard Whall, she set up ‘The Stonebridge Press’ and illustrated a number of its hand printed publications. By the time of the First World War, Whall was one of her father’s principal assistants, becoming a partner in the firm Whall & Whall Ltd in 1922. After her father’s death in 1924, she carried on the work of the Whall studio, helped by her brother until her retirement in 1953. Among her most important commissions were windows for Carlisle and Leicester Cathedrals and the complete glazing scheme for King Arthur’s Hall.

Details

Date: 1864
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. Te 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

Date: 1863
Object Type: glass
Material: stained, painted, leaded glass
Catalogue number: C232
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Designer: Brown, Ford Madox, 1821, 1893
Manufacturer: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Neil Phillips, John Hardman Studios, 2000

This stained glass panel depicts a man cutting wood in the branches of a tree. An owl can be seen looking up at him from the bottom right and the top right of the image features a ram, possibly a reference to the zodiac symbol Aries. The window was designed by Ford Madox Brown and Philip Webb for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., the precursor to Morris & Co.

The window may have been part of a glazing scheme for Silsden House, Keighley, Yorkshire from 1863 to 1864. Brown’s account book in 1864 includes an entry about a design for ‘cutting trees down’. The original design for the window is at Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Details

Date: 1584
Dimensions: 32 x 23 x 11
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: H34
Owner: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Owner: Morris, Jenny (1861 - 1935)
Credit notes: Transfer from Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 2011

This is a rare first edition copy of the first Icelandic bible, it is printed in three parts with separate title pages for the Old Testament, Prophets and the New Testament. It is known as Gudbrand’s Biblia, after its translator and editor Guðbrandur Þorláksson (or Gudbrandur Thorlaksson) (1541 – July 20, 1627). William Morris acquired it during his travels in Iceland in 1871. His Icelandic Diaries record how he saw in the house of one Dr Skaptason at Hnausar (in Húnavatnssýsla) ‘a fine copy of the Gudbrand Bible in its original binding brass-bound and very good’.

An inscription written by Morris in Icelandic on the first page reads: ‘This book I give to my daughter Jóhönnu on the day of her birth 17 Jan: 1891’, revealing that he gave the bible to his elder daughter Jenny on the occassion of her 30th birthday. Morris owned another edition of this bible, which remained in his possesion until his death. It is now in Princeton University Library.

Details

Date: 1870-1880
Dimensions: 28 x 22
Object Type: sculpture
Catalogue number: H53
Owner: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Transfer from Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 2011

This drinking horn was acquired by William Morris in Iceland, possibly a gift from a friend.

The horn was donated to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter in 1939 by Mary Lobb, May Morris’s companion and later transferred to the William Morris Gallery.

Details

Date: 1890
Dimensions: 66 x 55.9
Object Type: drawing
Material: pastel on paper
Catalogue number: D74
Sitter: Fawcett, Philippa Garrett (4 April 1868 - 10 June 1948)
Artist: Rathbone, Harold Steward (1858 - 1929)
Credit notes: Gift of Philippa Garrett Fawcett, 1938

The subject of this portrait, Phillippa Garrett Fawcett (1868-1948) was the daughter of the pioneer suffragist Millicent Fawcett, she won early fame by achieving high marks in the Mathematics Tripos at Cambridge University- at the time women were not admitted to the University’s degrees. It is said that Fawcett inspired William Morris to use her name for one of the characters in his novel ‘News From Nowhere’. ‘Mistress Philippa’ is the skilled stone-carver whom William Guest meets during his journey up the Thames to Kelmcott.

The portrait is by Harold Steward Rathbone, after studying at the Slade School and in Paris, Rathbone worked as a pupil of Ford Madox Brown, assisting him with the murals at Manchester Town Hall. He played an active role in the Arts and Crafts Movement and in 1893 set up the Della Robbia Art Pottery in Birkenhead.

Details

Date: 1874
Dimensions: 27 x 20
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: BrW85
Artist: Shields, Frederic James (1833 - 1911)
Sitter: Booth, Matilda (1856)
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1950

Watercolour portrait of the artist’s wife, Matilda Booth, known as Cissy. She was frequently used by Shields as a model; they were married in 1874, the year in which the present watercolour was painted, when Shields was 40 and Matilda 16. The watercolour was formerly in the collection of Mrs. E. Middleton, who wrote the life of Shields’.

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: 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: c.1890-1910
Object Type: textile
Technique: embroidery
Catalogue number: F461
Attributed designer: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 2025

This Morris & Co. design is currently the only known example of Squirrel. It was originally set into a firescreeen (now removed) and features two squirrels collecting hazelnuts. The design bears similarities to May Morris’s embroidery designs for the Firm. Another design by May Morris to feature squirrels, is the William Morris Gallery’s large panel Battye Embroidered Wall Hanging (F101), which was designed by May but executed by Frances Battye around 1900. The animals in this smaller panel are more refined and may reflect the work of a skilled embroiderer such as May or one of the employees in the Firm’s embroidery section.

The design is embroidered onto Morris & Co’s St James’s silk damask. May also embroidered on damask for the Spring and Summer panels (c. 1895–1900, private collection), which are applied to a ground of Morris & Co. Oak damask as well as Fruit Garden portières. These pieces are recorded in the Firm’s Embroidery Day Book (1892-1896) now in the National Art Library (V&A:86.CC.31). The choice of Morris & Co. damask for the background made these works more costly than those with a more common cotton background.

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

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

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: c.1890
Dimensions: 95 x 131.4
Object Type: drawing
Catalogue number: D187
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: Cecil French Bequest, 1954

An oil painting of this composition was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1893 but is now missing (reproduced in ‘Sir Edward Burne-Jones: A Record and a Review’ George Bell 1989 facing p.68). The oil painting shows minor variations in pose – the figure of Pilgrim for instance looks towards Love at right in oil painting and not at the seated female figure as in sketch and similarly the female figure looks out towards spectator and not at the Pilgrim as in this version. Love in the oil painting also carries arrows as well as a bow. The background is also more elaborate in the oil painting, with lilies and irises in foreground, details of architecture at left and right and a wood with briars at left and three birds flying near figure of Pilgrim./

The subject is another drawn from Chaucer’s ‘Romaunt of the Rose’, which had been used for an extensive series of embroideries (c. 1872-1878) designed by Morris and Burne-Jones and worked by Margaret, wife of Sir Lowthian Bell, and her daughter for the frieze of the dining room at Rounton Grange, Northallerton, Yorkshire, though in the embroideries, the treatment of this specific scene is different. Different treatments of the same scene are also to be found in the Kelmscott Chaucer illustrations and in a tapestry of which one is now in a private collection, the other in the Museum of Karlsruhe.

Details

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

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