Snakeshead

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: 1874-1876
Dimensions: 88 x 582
Object Type: textile
Technique: embroidery
Catalogue number: F140d
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Bell, Margaret (1820 - 1886)
Maker: Johnson, Florence
Credit notes: Presented by Sir Hugh Bell, Bart., 1953

This embroidery was part of a frieze of five parts commissioned by Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell and his wife Margaret for the dining room of Rounton Grange, Northallerton, Yorkshire. The panels depict the story of The Romaunt of the Rose by Geoffrey Chaucer and were based on original pictures drawn by Edward Burne-Jones c.1874-76. The exquisite embroidery was executed by the wife and daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Margaret Bell and Florence Johnson, respectively.

Details

Date: c.1885-1900
Dimensions: 52.1 x 52.1
Object Type: textile
Material: silks and gold thread on linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F154
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Presented by Marie Lyndon Lang, 1954

‘Flowerpot’ was designed by William Morris for Morris & Co., c.1876. This fine example was embroidered by May Morris, using satin, stem, darning, herringbone, French knots and couched gold. The gold is so vibrant it is likely to be Japanese gold which doesn’t tarnish. Japanese gold thread was recommended by May Morris in her instructional book ‘Decorative Needlework’. The panel is edged with a handmade buttonhole braid. This version was gifted to May’s friend and neighbour Dorothy Walker, the daughter of the printed Emery Walker. Another example of ‘Flowerpot’, also embroidered by May is in the V&A (T.68-1939). William Morris’s original design drawing is in the Gallery’s collection (see A1061) and another version in the William Morris Society’s collection. Morris based the design on two Italian seventeenth-century lacis-work panels acquired by the South Kensington Museum in 1875. Lacis is a handmade net onto which a design is darned.

‘Flowerpot’ was available to buy in kit form from Morris & Co.; as a tracing pattern to be embroidered at home, partly started, or as finished version worked by the Firm’s embroidery department. According to the Firm’s ‘Embroidery Day Book 1894-1896’ (V&A), a tracing of ‘Flowerpot’ cost 5 shillings, whilst a started version on cotton or linen cost 14 shillings. The square shape meant it was adapted into cushions and mounted into firescreens. Other worked examples are in collections of National Museums Liverpool, Birmingham Museum and the Embroiderers’ Guild.

Details

Date: designed 1876
Dimensions: 63.5 x 133.4
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: woven
Catalogue number: F27
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Woven wool treble cloth with warp in shades of dark & light blues and weft in cream with dark & light blue and pale green. The pattern was produced in range of materials, such as 3-ply carpeting and fabric, woven silk and wool, woven wool and cotton. This 3-ply woven wool was originally manufactured for Morris & Co by Heckmondwike Manufacturing Company, Yorkshire, England, and later at Merton Abbey.

Details

Date: c.1880s
Dimensions: 185.4 x 94 including fringe
Object Type: textile
Material: woollen pile on cotton warp
Technique: hand-knotted
Catalogue number: N10
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: Presented by Miss M.L. Wooldridge, 1955

This small ‘Hammersmith rug’ was designed by William Morris. The border of peonies and pastel colouring shows the influence of Chinese design. 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, with whom she shared with the radical preacher Stewart Headlam (Headlam is perhaps most famous for putting up half of Oscar Wilde’s bail when he was tried for ‘gross indecency’ in 1885).

A similar example was given by Morris to Margaret Mackail (nee Burne-Jones) on the occassion of her wedding in 1888, this is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (T.104-1953). Another small rug to the same design was lent by Mrs. Lucius Gubbins to the Victoria & Albert Museum William Morris centenary exhibition in 1934 (94). It is reproduced in Gerald H. Crow’s “William Morris – Designer” published by ‘The Studio’ 1934 p. 81.

The same design was later woven at Wilton (their no. 6213).

Details

Date: c.1890-1920
Dimensions: 86 x 56 x 35.6
Object Type: textile
Catalogue number: H31
Owner: Morris, May
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1993

The loom is a high-warp tapestry loom, the frame in oak with metalwork fitments, threaded with a cotton warp and partially completed tapestry based on a Morris-inspired border pattern. The loom is probably identical with the loom referred to in the 1939 Kelmscott Manor sale catalogue as ‘oak weaving loom with unfinished tapestry of ‘The River Thames’ worked by Miss Morris and a box of various wools etc’. The bobbins threaded with coloured wools, samples of various coloured wools wound round old envelopes addressed to May Morris, and two warp combs were also purchased with the loom and are in the Gallery’s collection.

The unfinished tapestry referred to in the Kelmscott Manor sale catalogue was apparently cut off the loom by the vendor’s mother, who used the loom for her own tapestry showing an abstract pattern. It is now threaded with a warp and a partially completed tapestry based on the Morris-inspired border design on the cover of one of the Morris & Co catalogues c.1911, worked by the Handweavers Studio, 29 Haroldstone Road, Walthamstow, 1993.

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)
Manufacturer: Alexander Morton & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
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”.

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 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 1877, made 1877-1900
Dimensions: 200.7 x 142.2
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F335
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Maker: Godman, Ada Phoebe ( - Jan 1900)
Credit notes: Purchased 1978

One panel of a set designed and made to hang in the drawing room of Smeaton Manor, Northallerton, North Yorkshire. The panels are embroidered in wool on linen and features a pattern of alternating rows of clumps of stylised flowers, large blue artichoke heads and blue flower-heads against a background arabesque pattern of stems, leaves and small flowers. It is embroidered using stem, satin, long & short, French knots, split and back stich.

The panels were worked by Mrs Ada Phoebe Godman, who lived at Smeaton Manor. She was the daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, a wealthy customer of Morris & Co.. Godman commissioned William Morris to produce the design and her diary records its arrival on 31 August 1877. A surviving drawing shows her still working on the embroideries in 1900. The design was not exclusive, a pair of hangings from the same design were worked in silks by Mrs Margaret Beale and her daughters for their country home, Standen, East Sussex.

The two other panels from the Smeaton Manor set are in the collections of the Fitzwilliam and the V&A and a fourth, designed for a doorway was sold at auction September 2018.

Details

Date: c. 1900
Dimensions: 274.3 x 213.4
Object Type: textile
Technique: machine-woven
Catalogue number: N5
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Wilton Royal Carpet Factory Ltd
Credit notes: Presented by Miss M.L. Wooldridge, 1955

One of a number of patterned carpets designed by John Henry Dearle around 1900 for Morris & Co. to be made by machine; the pattern emulated the effect of the more expensive hand-knotted Hammersmith carpets. Another example is in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries, Kelmscott Manor. The carpet 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: designed 1884
Dimensions: 365.8 x 96.5
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F392
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1998

Cray was designed by William Morris in 1884, one of a series of patterns created at this time named after tributaries of the River Thames and other rivers. The cray is a chalk stream, and a tributary of the River Darent, in south-East London. The pattern consists of large stem and peony-like flowers with a secondary network of flowers and leaves against a background of curling small leaves, stems and flowerheads. The size of the repat and complexity of the pattern meant that 34 different printing blocks were required to print one pattern repeat, making it Morris’s most expensive blockprinted fabric.

Details

Date: Designed 1876, printed 1877-1917
Dimensions: 94 x 98
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F401
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Wardle and Co. (1872 - 1908)
Retailer: Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd, 449 Oxford Street, London
Credit notes: Presented by Michael Whiteway, 1998

Snakeshead was designed by William Morris in 1876. It was printed by Thomas Wardle at his factory in Leek, Wardle continued to print this design for Morris & Co., after Morris opened his own textile printing factory at Merton Abbey. The pink and blue on pink ground is colourway no. 1573. The selvedge is printed with Morris 7 Co’s Oxford Street address.

Details

Date: designed in 1876
Dimensions: 132 x 91.5
Object Type: textile
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F423
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Maker: Wardle and Co. (1872 - 1908)
Credit notes: Presented by the Victoria and Albert Museum Department of Textiles and Dress, 2001

Honeysuckle was registered as a design by William Morris in on 11 October 1876. It was printed onto a number of different fabrics, inclusing linen, cotton, combed cotton, challis, silk, tusser silk and velveteen;. This example is challis, a type of lightweight woven fabric. It was printed for Morris & Co by Thomas Wardle & Co., Leek.

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: 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. The tapestry was exhibited at the first Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society in 1888, lent by Morris & Co., with Knight and Sleath’s names listed in the accompanying catalogue (no.50h). It was bought by Sir Byron Peters (1867 – 1939) 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: 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

Details

Date: early 1860s
Dimensions: 185.5 x 66.3
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on linen
Technique: embroidery
Catalogue number: F390ii
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: Purchased with assistance of the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 1997

This embroidered hanging was designed by William Morris and probably hung in his first home, Red House in Bexleyheath. It was most likely stitched by a small team that may have included Morris’s wife Jane and her sister Elizabeth Burden. In the early days of their marriage Morris and Jane often worked on embroideries together. They enjoyed unpicking old pieces of embroidery that they admired to learn the different stitching techniques. Morris’s enthusiasm for medieval art is clear in his early embroidery designs, such as this one. The tree, banner and bird motif was inspired by an illustration in a fifteenth-century manuscript that he had been studying in the British Museum. The French inscription, ‘Qui Bien Aime Tard Oublie’, translates as ‘who loves best forgets slowly’ and is taken from Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem ‘Parliament of Fowls’. It simple terms it means ‘one never forgets true love’.

The embroidery was one of a set of identical hangings installed at Penkill Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland by the late 1860s. The castle belonged to Alice Boyd, mistress of the painter William Bell Scott, who was closely connected to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite circle. In a letter to Boyd in 1868, Rossetti referrers to the embroideries as “the Topsaic tapestries” a reference to Morris’s nickname ‘Topsy’. The hangings were likely an early product produced by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co after it was founded in 1861. A very similar pattern can be seen on the hanging in the background of William Morris’s only easel painting, ‘La Belle Iseult’, painted in 1858.

Details

Date: c.1885
Dimensions: 25 x 12.5
Object Type: textile
Material: silk on cotton
Catalogue number: F454
Maker: Burden, Elizabeth (13.12.1841 - 22.08.1924)
Credit notes: The widow of Tim Langley, purchased with assistance from the Friends of the William Morris Gallery and the Art Fund, 2018

This embroidery is a part of a chalice cover or pall- used to cover the chalice cup for holy communion. It is stitched by Elizabeth (Bessie) Burden, the sister-in-law of William Morris. The figurative design of a young winged angel minstrel, clothed in medieval style dress holding two clashing cymbals is based on Morris’s c.1867 design for stained glass. A design drawing for a chalice cover from from the same series, depicting an angel with a harp, is in the William Morris Society collection (D213)

Burden’s innovative application of Morris’s design appears to have been inspired by medieval embroidery. The figure is embroidered in silk, using the eponymous ‘Burden Stitch’, applied here to great effect, particularly in the fine features of the angel’s face. The background is intricately embroidered with couched gold thread to create a three dimensional pattern of flowers. At some point in the embroidery’s history it has been framed and Burden’s signature affixed below.

Burden, along with her sister Jane, Morris’s wife, was to play a central role in the production of many of Morris’s finest embroideries. She helped stitch the medieval inspired hangings that furnished William and Jane’s first home, Red House and would later play a central role in his firm’s embroidery department. Although Morris and Burden had a fractious personal relationship, Morris described her as ‘a First-rate needle-woman’ with a ‘complete mastery of the theory & practice of all kinds of needlework’.

In addition to working for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., Burden supplemented her income by teaching embroidery at the home she shared with her sister and brother-in-law at 26 Queen Square in Bloomsbury and later became an instructor at the Royal School of Needlework (RSN). Whilst at the School she popularised a type of tapestry stitch that could be used to great effect for embroidery figures, as exemplified in this embroidery. The stitch was renamed ‘Burden Stitch’ in the School’s Handbook of Embroidery in recognition of Bessie’s contribution; a woodcut showing the stitch was also included in the volume on the grounds that the RSN was frequently asked to describe it.

Most interestingly, it bears a striking resemblance to c.1890s embroidery ‘Minstrel with Cymbals’ by Morris’s daughter May, now in the collection of the William Morris Society. Although there are noticeable differences- Burden’s Angel is winged and set against a gold couched background, whereas May’s figure is without wings and the background is of an orange tree, the similarities, from the folds in the Angel’s clothes, to the details in the hands, makes it possible that this example by Burden, the older and more experienced embroider, inspired her niece May to create her own later version of the design.

Details

Date: design registered 5 October 1875
Dimensions: 216 x 91.5
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F391
Attributed designer: Faulkner, Kate
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1998

The delicately meandering carnations in this printed textile are characteristic of the lightness and movement in patterns by Kate Faulkner (1841-98), one of the most skilled designers to work for Morris & Co. Introduced to Morris through her brother Charles, who was one of the founding partners of ‘The Firm’, Faulkner initially executed painted decoration on tiles and furniture before creating her own designs for ceramics, wallpaper and textiles. The simple two tone colour scheme of this pattern is typical of many of Faulkner’s designs, and adds to the airy feel of this piece, with the large blue carnations in the foreground subtly bound to the small flowers in the background by means of swirling vines. As well as creating designs for Morris & Co., Faulkner also designed several wallpapers directly for Jeffrey & Co.

This textile once belonged to the Arts & Crafts furniture maker Edward Barnsley. It has been backed and edged with a blue lining fabric.

Details

Date: designed 1878
Dimensions: 30 x 18
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: woven
Catalogue number: F283d
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mr Roman Damata, 1969

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

Details

Date: designed 1878
Dimensions: 202 x 186
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Catalogue number: F424
Credit notes: Gift of Douglas Schoenherr, 2001

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

Two pieces joined, one full width, one half width.

Details

Date: designed 1878
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: woven
Catalogue number: F283b
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mr Roman Damata, 1969

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

Details

Date: designed 1878
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: woven
Catalogue number: F283c
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mr Roman Damata, 1969

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

Details

Date: designed 1878
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: woven
Catalogue number: F283a
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mr Roman Damata, 1969

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

Details

Date: designed 1884
Dimensions: 71.1 x 97.8
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F24
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Details

Date: designed 1884
Dimensions: 94 x 94
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F402
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1998

This version is an in unusual colourway with yellow and green on dark green ground. Colourway no. 2109.

Details

Date: designed 1884
Dimensions: 109.8 x 89.5
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: indigo discharge and block-printed
Catalogue number: F208
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Miss Mary Ann Sloane bequest, 1962

Details

Date: design registered 27 February 1896
Dimensions: 187.3 x 72.4
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F221
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Charles Bramley, 1962

‘Compton’ was previously thought to have been William Morris’s last design for a wallpaper (and adapted as a pattern for fabric). This was confirmed by May Morris in her ‘Collected Works of William Morris’. However, following Linda Parry’s research it is thought to have in fact been designed by Morris & Co.’s Chief Designer Henry Dearle. Morris and Co. redesigned the the residence of Laurence W. Hodson, Compton Hall near Wolverhampton in 1895-6, although Morris had a hand in some of the designs (this is confirmed in surviving letters), there is no evidence that he was sole designer for any of the house designs. Rather, he and Dearle worked together, sending designs back and forth and correcting each other’s work. The evidence to suggest this is in fact Dearle’s design, is further strengthened by its similarity to his other work, particularly ‘Leicester’ wallpaper.

Details

Date: 1888
Dimensions: 140 x 94
Object Type: textile
Material: linen
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F403
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased from Michael Whiteway, 1998

Trent is one of series of textile designs produced by Morris & Co in the late 1880s named after rivers. John Henry Deale designed ‘Trent’ in 1888, the pattern features tulips, sunflowers and roses on an indigo background. This example is the end of a bolt of fabric and so is possible to see how the pattern was handprinted with woodblocks to form the pattern repeat. The edge and selvedges are printed with Morris & Co’s stamp.

Details

Date: 1876
Dimensions: 86.4 x 100.4
Object Type: textile
Material: pen on paper
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F363
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Maker: Wardle and Co. (1872 - 1908)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1994

Details

Date: designed 1883
Dimensions: 25.7 x 72.4
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F304
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Whitworth Art Gallery, 1969

This fragment of ‘Borage’, designed by William Morris, was given to the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester by the firm Wardle and Co. and later transferred to the William Morris Gallery. Thomas Wardle was a master dyer who worked with Morris to perfect the dyes used for his textiles, his firm also manufactured Morris & Co. textiles before Morris moved his production in-house to Merton Abbey in 1881. This pattern was designed in 1883 and thefore post-dates Wardle & Co’s period of production for Morris & Co.

Details

Date: 1879
Dimensions: 66 x 34.5
Object Type: textile
Catalogue number: F131a
Credit notes: Gift of Lady Pooley, 1953

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”.

Details

Date: c.1917-1925
Dimensions: 21.6 x 27.9
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Catalogue number: F182
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Owner: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Mary Ann Sloane, 1958

Morris &Co. pattern book containing 104 samples of 45 designs for printed cottons (several not designed by Morris) in various colourways. Bound in blue ‘Borage’ chintz. Stamped in gilt on front cover: MORRIS / 17, GEORGE ST. / HANOVER SQUARE / LONDON, W1. The pattern book was owned by May Morris.

Labels on inner front and back cover:
TO BE RETURNED TO
Morris & Company / Decorators, Ltd / 17 George Street, Hanover Square, / London, W1/

Hand Printed Cottons, / Linens and Taffetas. /

Larger Patterns of any of the enclosed will / be sent on application, should Customers wish / to see the full colouring and design. The Books / are to enable a first selection to be made. (underlined)

In Ordering please quote Numbers. Do not cut Patterns.

also inscribed in ink and pencil on inside of front cover:
No. 220

Contains the following samples:

African Marigold (x5)
Bird & Anemone (x7)
Bluebell (x2)
Bourne
Flowerpot (x2)
Brother Rabbit (x4)
Cherwell
Compton (x2)
Colling Trail
Corncockle
Cray (x4)
Daffodil (x3)
Eden (x2)
Evenlode (x2)
Eyebright (x2)
Haddon (x2)
Holkham
Honeysuckle (x7)
Kennet (x5)
Large Stem Twill (x2)
Lea (x3)
Little Chintz
Lodden (x4)
Marigold
Medway
Peony (x2)
Powdered
Rose (x2)
Rose & Thistle (x5)
Small stem Twill
Snakehead (x3)
Strawberry Theif
Sweet Briar
Tangley
Trent (x2)
Tulip (x7)
Tulip and Willow
Wandle
Wey
Willow Bough
Windrush (x6)
Yare (x2)
Large Stem Linen (x2)

Details

Date: c. 1900
Dimensions: 31.1 x 21.6
Object Type: textile
Material: velveteen
Technique: woven and block-printed
Catalogue number: F355
Designer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1994

Book with dark maroon red cloth binding, stamped with Morris & Co address at 449 Oxford street on front cover. Contains 10 samples of printed velveteen in different colourways each sample approx 26.7 x 19.7cm. All pieces have Morris & Co. printed labels with pattern name, colourway, width & price.

List of Samples:
a) Acanthus (designed by Morris 1876; red colourway)
b) Acanthus (designed by Morris 1876; blue colourway)
c) Acanthus (designed by Morris 1876; yellow colourway)
d) Cherwell (designed by J H Dearle 1887; cream/buff pattern on green ground)
e) Cherwell (designed by J H Dearle 1887; white, yellow, dark green pattern on mid-blue ground)
f) Florence (designed by J H Dearle 1890; white, pink on deep rose ground)
g) Florence (designed by J H Dearle 1890; ochre, pink, green on mid -green ground)
h) Wey (designed by Morris c. 1883; two shades pink on dark red ground)
i) Severn (designed by J H Dearle 1887-90; cream, buff, brown, red and slate green on cream ground stippled brown)
j) Mole (designed by J H Dearle after 1892; pink on rose ground)

Details

Date: Designed 1875-1880
Dimensions: 101.6 x 79.4
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: machine-woven
Catalogue number: N14
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Heckmondwike Manufacturing Co. Yorkshire
Credit notes: Presented by Worcestershire County Museum, Hartlebury Castle, Kidderminster, 1970

Kidderminster machine wool carpet with design of artichoke heads, stylised anemones and other flowers in an overall net pattern, with a border showing the same motifs and a narrow band of small pairs of birds and flowers, in green, pink and pale blue on dark blue ground. Section from a larger carpet. For original design see WMG: BLA449.

Details

Date: 1875-1876
Dimensions: 79 x 106.9
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on linen
Technique: embroidery
Catalogue number: F430
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased with grants from the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 2004

This embroidered panel was designed by Philip Webb and William Morris and produced by Morris & Co.’s embroidery department. The panel is cut from a larger embroidery and depicts a peacock (designed by Webb) surrounded by a repeating pattern of grapes and vines (designed by Morris). Webb’s full-size drawing for the central peacock is also in the Gallery’s collection (see A209). Webb was primarily an architect, notably designing Morris’s Red House, but was also a gifted draughtsman with a particular interest in the natural world. As a young boy, he studied the illustrations of Thomas Bewick, the influence of whom remained evident throughout Webb’s artistic output. William Morris would often ask Webb to draw the animals within his designs for wallpapers, tapestries and textiles, recognising his superior skill. See for example ‘Trellis’, Morris’s first wallpaper design (William Morris Gallery BLA472), and ‘The Forest’, a large tapestry woven at Merton Abbey in 1887, which also incorporates a peacock into its design alongside Morris’s swirling acanthus leaves.

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

Date: design registered 27 February 1896
Dimensions: 80 x 77.4
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F15
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Details

Dimensions: 66.0 x 37.0
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Catalogue number: H10
Manufacturer: Unknown
Owner: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Dorothy Walker, 1953

This satchel belonged to William Morris; he used it to carry books or manuscripts he was reading when commuting to his business in central London . His daughter May Morris, later wrote about how she remembered her father carrying this bag, describing how ‘from the worn brown satchel used for parcel-carrying [he would] produce a modest-looking volume, sometimes protected by a velvet-lined case, sometimes bare, but inside! a fairy-story, a picture-gallery in little of mediaeval life.‘

Details

Date: c.1890s
Dimensions: 168 x 91
Object Type: textile
Material: painted and embroidered silk
Catalogue number: F432
Maker: Unknown
Credit notes: Presented by Mr Peter Jacobs, 2009. Conserved with the assistance of The Kathy Callow Trust, 2012.

This banner by an unrecorded maker is an extremely rare survival; most have perished through repeated use on street demonstrations and marches. The design, painted on silk, is copied from Burne-Jones illustration to Morris’s socialist fiction, A Dream of John Ball. The inscription (embroidered in gold silk) ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman’ is an attack on the class system.

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 37.7 x 125.7
Object Type: textile
Material: silk
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F320
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Maker: Jack, Annie Christian (1861 - 1942)
Credit notes: Presented by Miss J Jack and Miss M Jack, 1972

This embroidery, stitched by Annie Christian Jack and designed by her husband George Jack, has a folk-art quality. The design shows the main characters from William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. The dancing figure of Oberon (left) bears an uncanny resemblance to William Morris. Titiana and Puck are to the right. Below is the inscription “Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight”.

The panel was designed as a piano frontal and is worked in split stitch, stem stitch, herringbone, long and short stitches, cross-bar with small diagonal stitches infilled with satin stitch, single chain stitch; metal beads used for Titania’s crown and blanket Stitch.

A very similar embroidery appears also as a bolster cover at Wightwick Manor, National Trust.

Details

Date: Designed 1879, manufactured early 20th century
Dimensions: 40 x 43.5
Object Type: textile
Technique: power-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F157
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1955

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 the dealer Vincent J. Robinson’s shop in London in March 1878 (see letter from WM to May Morris). The irregular shape of this fragment suggests it was used to upholster an armchair or sofa, it was purchased by the Gallery in 1940 from the Estate of Mrs Lucius Gubbins, one of Morris & Co.’s most well known customers.

Object Type: textile

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