Bird woven wool curtain

Details

Date: designed 1878
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F269a
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)

William Morris designed Bird woven wool in 1878. The pattern features pairs of birds, both standing and in flight, surrounded by scrolling acanthus leaves and yellow sunflowers. For earlier designs, Morris had relied on Philip Webb to draw the birds, as seen in the Trellis wallpaper. However, on 25 March 1877, Morris wrote to his friend, the textile manufacturer Thomas Wardle (1831–1909), stating: ‘I am studying birds now to see if I can’t get some of them into my next design.’ Bird is the first in a series of textile designs by Morris to feature his own drawings of birds.

In April 1878, around the time this design was created, Morris moved into Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, where he subsequently adorned every wall of the first-floor drawing room with Bird woven wool curtains.

The original design is held in the collection of the William Morris Society, London (D31).

Details

Date: designed 1878
Dimensions: 188 x 124.5
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F269
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

The original design is held in the collection of the William Morris Society, London (D31).

Details

Date: designed 1878
Dimensions: 253 x137.2
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F26ci
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

‘Peacock and Dragon’ was designed by William Morris in 1878. It was first hand-woven on jacquard looms at Morris & Co’s premises in Queen Square, London and later at the firm’s factory Merton Abbey, Surrey. It was available in two widths: 183 cm (72 in.) and also in 137 cm (54 in). It was available in two colourways, Morris & Co. pattern no: 200 (5 colourways) and 5623 (2 colourways). The size of pattern repeat: 109 x 90 cm. (43 x 35.5 in.).

This example is one width of a double width pair of curtains made by the Gallery for display in the 1960s, the four widths were separated around 1988 to form four lengths (see F26). The curtains were made from an original 30 yard length of 54 inch width five colourway fabric, acquired from Morris & Co. when it closed in 1940.

Details

Date: Designed c.1888
Dimensions: 65 x 65
Object Type: textile
Material: silk and linen
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F406
Attributed designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Attributed designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Ms A McEwan, 1998

Described by May Morris as ‘fit for a queen’s chamber’, this luxurious fabric is one of the last textile designs attributed to her father. Woven at Merton Abbey on hand-activated Jacquard looms, its shimmering texture is created by the contrast between the linen ground and silk pattern. In addition to its use within wealthy homes, Golden Bough was also popular for church furnishing, a profitable aspect of Morris’s business.

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

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: 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

Dimensions: 57.8 x 87.6
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F198
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss E. Pugh, 1961

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.

Details

Date: designed 1878
Dimensions: 163 x 137.2
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F26cii
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Retailer: Morris & Co. Art-Workers Ltd., 17 George Street, Hanover Square, London
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Details

Date: designed c.1898
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F460
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.

This woven wool was designed by John Henry Dearle for Morris & Co. around 1898. The repeating pattern is formed of orange coloured squirrels amongst a grape vine heavy with fruit. Originally entitled Fox and Grape after the Aesop fable, it was later changed to Squirrel, presumably because the animals more closely resembled the form of a red squirrel. Although many of Morris & Co’s patterns feature birds, beside the rabbits in the popular ‘Brother Rabbit’ pattern and these squirrels, there are no other examples of animals in the Firm’s repeating textile patterns. This example was once one of a pair of curtains and features two widths of decorative fringing at the bottom. The wool was produced on a jaquard hand-loom at Morris & Co’s factory Merton Abbey and came in three colourways. Dearle’s original design drawing is in the Huntington Art Collection, USA.

Details

Dimensions: 51 x 13.5
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F385
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Harriet Hardiment, 1997

William Morris designed Flower Garden in 1879. He described it in a letter to Georgian 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 1878
Dimensions: 87 x137.2
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F26ciii
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Details

Date: designed 1878
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F26civ
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven

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