Three Figures from ‘The Calumny of Apelles’ (study after Botticelli)

Details

Date: designed c.1882
Dimensions: 56.5 x 136.5
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B28c
Designer: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

This wallpaper frieze was designed by The Century Guild to match ‘Bay Leaf’ wallpaper. The design shows a repeated design of three kneeling figures in classical robes, playing musical instruments against a frieze of bay leaves on branches interwoven along the bottom. The Century Guild monogram is incorporated in the design (on a bay leaf). With the exception of Walter Crane, few designers in the 1880s included figures in their wallpapers. Horne’s Bay Leaf Frieze is therefore a remarkable novel creation. The frieze was prominently displayed in the Century Guild’s stand at the 1885 Inventions Exhibition at South Kensignton and also the 1886 Liverpool International Exhibition.
The repeat size is 53.3 x 106.7 cm.

Details

Date: designed c.1882
Dimensions: 56.5 x 365.8
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B28b
Designer: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Details

Date: designed c.1882
Dimensions: 56.5 x 467.4
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B28a
Designer: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Details

Date: designed c.1882
Dimensions: 56.5 x 444.5
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: B28
Designer: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Manufacturer: Jeffrey & Co.
Retailer: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

This wallpaper frieze was designed by The Century Guild to match ‘Bay Leaf’ wallpaper. The design shows a repeated design of three kneeling figures in classical robes, playing musical instruments against a frieze of bay leaves on branches interwoven along the bottom. The Century Guild monogram is incorporated in the design (on a bay leaf). With the exception of Walter Crane, few designers in the 1880s included figures in their wallpapers. Horne’s Bay Leaf Frieze is therefore a remarkable novel creation. The frieze is accompanied by a wallpaper featuring a repeating pattern of bay leaves (see various examples in the Gallery collection). The frieze was prominently displayed in the Century Guild’s stand at the 1885 Inventions Exhibition at South Kensington and also the 1886 Liverpool International Exhibition.

The repeat size is 53.3 x 106.7 cm.

Details

Date: c.1887
Dimensions: 28 x 83.8 x 33
Object Type: metalwork
Material: brass
Catalogue number: L26
Designer: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Maker: Esling | George
Manufacturer: Century Guild
Credit notes: Purchased with a grant-in-aid from the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1976

This brass fender was designed by Herbert Horne for the Century Guild. It is made of brass with a pierced fretwork design of waving flowers and leaves. An identical fender was exhibited on the Century Guild stand at the Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Manchester, 1887 (illustrated in the Journal for Decorative Art, November 1887, p.173).

Details

Date: 1890s
Dimensions: 17.1 x 7
Object Type: metalwork
Material: brass
Catalogue number: L1a
Designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

This small brass candlestick is one of a pair (with L1) that feature turned baluster stems on circular bases. They are possibly the candlesticks that Mackmurdo’s architectural assistant from 1892 to 1897 Harry Sirr described in his reminiscences of Mackmurdo, written to Mackmurdo’s niece, Miss Elinor Pugh in 13 May 1942. In the record he recounts, ‘I was attracted by metal work of his design which he told me had been done by his own workmen. Some brass candlesticks struck me by their beauty, of round baluster form, not unlike Italian Renaissance work, with his own individuality.’

Details

Date: 1890s
Dimensions: 17.1 x 7
Object Type: metalwork
Material: brass
Catalogue number: L1
Designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

This small brass candlestick is one of a pair (with L1a) that feature turned baluster stems on circular bases. They are possibly the candlesticks that Mackmurdo’s architectural assistant from 1892 to 1897 Harry Sirr described in his reminiscences of Mackmurdo, written to Mackmurdo’s niece, Miss Elinor Pugh in 13 May 1942. In the record he recounts, ‘I was attracted by metal work of his design which he told me had been done by his own workmen. Some brass candlesticks struck me by their beauty, of round baluster form, not unlike Italian Renaissance work, with his own individuality.’

Details

Date: 1886
Dimensions: 47 x 31.8
Object Type: metalwork
Material: copper
Technique: repousse
Catalogue number: L9
Designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Maker: Kellock Brown, William (c.1856 - 1934)
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

This panel was designed by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and executed by the Scottish sculptor William Kellock Brown. It features a man surrounded by swirling drapery and an angel kneeling before him and clutching his legs. Kellock Brown was a member of the Art Workers Guild having trained at the Royal College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools in London.

Details

Date: designed 1903, printed 1950
Dimensions: 59.1 x 55.9
Object Type: wallpaper
Technique: block-printed in distemper
Catalogue number: B7b
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Manufacturer: Arthur Sanderson and Sons Ltd
Credit notes: Presented by Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd, 1950

Henry Dearle designed this wallpaper for Morris & Co. in 1903. The pattern combines clover flowers and tree blossom. The repeat size is 45.1cm x 53.3cm

This version was printed in 1950, using original Morris & Co. blocks by the firm Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd., who acquired the blocks from Morris & Co. when they closed in 1940. It is stamped down the right edge: ‘THE CLOVER’ and ‘MORRIS & Co’.

Details

Date: 1887
Dimensions: 29.2 x 34.3
Object Type: ceramic
Material: stoneware
Catalogue number: C30
Designer: Martin, Robert Wallace (1843 - 1923)
Manufacturer: R W Martin, London and Southall
Credit notes: Mackmurdo gift, 1942

Robert Wallace Martin was one of four brothers who ran the Martin Brothers pottery in Fulham (1873-7) and Southall (1877-1915). He was part of a movement of Arts and Crafts potters who, inspired by the simplicity and rustic appearance of medieval European and Japanese stoneware (a hard, dense kind of pottery), created salt-glazed stoneware, a strong, non-porous pottery with a distinctive ‘orange-peel’ texture. Martin’s output is characterised by groteque animals, vessels with faces, and rustic sculptural forms. Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo were all avid collectors of Martinware. However, despite the Martins’s success, they never made large profits and were only able to fire the kilns once or twice a year and the brothers lived in relative poverty. So-called ‘Wally bird’ tobacco jars such as this one were extremely popular. Similar examples exist in the British Museum and V&A.

Details

Date: 1900
Dimensions: 42 x 26.7 x 22.9
Object Type: sculpture
Material: plaster
Catalogue number: BrS28
Artist: Creswick, Benjamin (1853 - 1946)
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1950

Man in shirt, trousers and apron seated on an anvil looking slightly downwards and leaning forwards to rest his arm on one knee, his foot resting on a pile of horse-shoes below and hammer and pincers, holding a long-handled mallet in one hand, the other resting on the edge of the anvil.

Details

Date: 1888 - 1907
Dimensions: 17.8 x 12.1
Object Type: ceramic
Material: earthenware
Catalogue number: C5
Artist: De Morgan, William (1839 - 1917)
Manufacturer: De Morgan, Sands End Pottery, Fulham, London, England
Credit notes: Mackmurdo gift, 1942

William Morris met William De Morgan in 1863, and their friendship and professional association would last until Morris’s death. There was a large degree of overlap in their design, production and sale processes. The Firm sold ceramic products of its own design and also those by De Morgan; by the 1880s De Morgan was the main supplier to the Morris shop. De Morgan also made tiles after designs by Morris. From the 1870s Morris & Co. relied on De Morgan to supply high quality coloured enamels, as commerical products contained high levels of borax which compromised the colouration and durability of the tiles. From 1882 – 1888, William De Morgan moved his premises to Merton Abbey, to be closer to Morris, who already had works there, on the banks of the River Wandle. In 1888 he moved to Sands End in Fulham, where this bottle was produced.
De Morgan regularly used motifs of animals to create densely decorated objects. Birds similar to those depicted here can be found throughout his design sketchbook, now held at the V&A Museum.

Details

Date: c. 1862-63
Dimensions: 15.2 x 15.2 each tile
Object Type: ceramic
Material: hand-painted overglaze earthenware
Catalogue number: C257
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Manufacturer: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased with assistance from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, The Art Fund and Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 2006

Early in 1862, Edward Burne-Jones recorded in his account book (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) a series of designs for painted tiles with subjects from Greek mythology. The Judgement of Paris depicts the episode from the Greek legend when Paris, Prince of Troy has to chose the most beautiful of the three godessess and presents an apple to Venus, thus setting in train the Trojan War. The Latin inscription translates as ‘The Judgment of Paris on great Mount Ida’.

Painted in the Red Lion Square workshops of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.- of which Burne-Jones was a founder-partner with Wiliam Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown et al.- the tiles are an early and delightful example of the Pre-Raphaelite taste for depicting classical scenes in medieval guise. Paris is shown in cross-gartered leggings and huntsman’s cap, while the three godesses are distinctly late-Gothic in their bodily proportions. Identified by their named scrolls, the four figures stand in an enclosed, stylish landscape in the manner of a medieval tapestry or manuscript illumination.

Handpainted tiles were an important product of the Morris firm from its establishment in 1861 until the mid-1870s. Some were used as overmantels but others, as in this case, were intended to be framed and diplayed as pictures in their own right.

The only other known version of the tile panel is at Kelmscott Manor and differs in several details, notably that the scene is painted on 5-inch square tiles bordered with 12 blue tiles painted with an inscription by William Morris in black. It has been suggested that the Kelmscott Manor panel was to be shown at the International Exhibition at South Kensington later that year but was withdrawn from Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co’s exhibit when the ‘decorative value of verses’ was criticized by William Burges, one of the judges. If so, it is possible that this version, omitting Morris’s verses and with an integral simple inscription, was the version shown by the Firm at the Exhibition.

Details

Date: designed and manufactured post 1918
Dimensions: 62.9 x 96.5
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F367
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Designer: Dearle, Duncan William (1893 - 1954)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1994

This Morris & Co. printed cotton was designed by Duncan William Dearle. Duncan suceeded his father as chief designer and artistic directior at Morris & Co. when John Henry died in 1932. Duncan provided textile and stained glass designs, as well as running the day to day production in the various workshops. He took his responsibilities seriously but his great love was music: before the First World War he studied music composition in Heidelberg University in Germany (where he also familiarised himself with the art of dyeing), and later got a scholarship to Oxford. He became an accomplished organist and a music composer. According to Edward Pain, an employee of Morris & Co, he was less interested in design than in music, spending his time practising the clarinet. There are only three known designs by Duncan. This is the largest complete example of his design ‘Indian Pink’ which features alternating rows of pinks and bluebells.

Details

Date: designed c.1862-3
Dimensions: 26.7 x 17.8
Object Type: metalwork
Material: copper
Catalogue number: L20a
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Manufacturer: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1958

This type of candlestick was originally designed by Philip Webb as a part of the furnishings for William and Jane Morris’s Red House, Bexleyheath, Kent. Webb’s account book lists a design for candlesticks on 28 June 1863, for which he charged £1.10s. This pair in copper were given as a wedding present by Philip Webb to the architect Charles Winmill and his wife. Another pair, originally purchased from the Firm by Burne-Jones, are now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (M. 1130 & A-1926). For an identical single example in brass see H2.

Details

Date: c. 1861
Dimensions: 73.5 x 54.2
Object Type: design
Material: ink on paper
Catalogue number: A210
Artist: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Credit notes: Cecil French bequest, 1954

This is a finished design for the central panel of a stained glass window in the south aisle of All Saints, Selsley, Cloucestershire. The church was refurbished by the architect G.F. Bodley, who entrusted the making of stained glass to Morris and Philip Webb. They in turn recruited Rossetti, who was asked to make a series of designs for glass in the chancel as well as for the glass to which the present cartoon is related, showing The Sermon on the Mount, in the church’s south aisle. The standing figure of Christ is seen with hands raised as he preaches. Seated on the left of Christ, and to whom he faces, are the figures of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene, and behind them Saints John and James, while on the right, and to whom Christ turns his back, appear St Peter and Judas Iscariot. Several of Rossetti’s friends are said to have sat as models for the various figures; George Meredith, the novelist for the figure of Christ; Christina Rossetti for the Virgin, though the face is not unlike that of Elisabeth Siddal; Mary Magdelene bears a strong strong resemblance to Fanny Cornforth, whilst Algernon Swinburne and Simeon Soloman were said to be the models for St John and St James; William Morris as St Peter and Gambart, the art dealer (whom Rossetti disliked) as Judas. Another preparatory drawing for the window is in Leeds City Art Gallery.

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