Qui Bien Aime Tarde Oublie Embroidery

Details

Date: early 1860s
Dimensions: 185.5 x 127.5
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F390i
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’. In 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: 1874-1876
Dimensions: 96.5 x 126.4
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F140e
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 (see D187). The exquisite embroidery was executed by the wife and daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Margaret Bell and Florence Johnson, respectively.

Details

Date: 1874-1876
Dimensions: 92.1 x 123.2
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F140b
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

Details

Date: c.1900
Dimensions: 188 x 296
Object Type: textile
Material: silk on hessian canvas
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F101
Designer: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Maker: Battye (née Bibby), Frances, Mrs (15.12.1846)
Credit notes: Donated by Miss M Audrey Battye and Mrs Bibby, 1950

The design for this embroidery was commissioned from Morris & Co. by Mrs Frances Battye. It was designed by May Morris and worked by Battye herself. Frances Battye (neé Bibby) was the daughter of James Jenkinson Bibby, a self-made millionaire and founder of the Bibby Shiping Line. She married her husband, a barrister called Richard Battye in 1866 however he died just a few years later in 1873. The Battye family coat of arms was incorporated into this embroidery. Two of May’s designs for this embroidery are in the V&A’s collection (E.30 and 30A-1940).

Frances Batteye was a skilled embroider and completed this large hanging with the help of her two daughters, Audrey and Norah. She also completed two other hangings around 1898, now in the V&A (T.369&A-1982).

Details

Date: c.1880s - 1890s
Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.4
Object Type: textile
Material: silks and gold thread on linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F337
Designer: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Maker: Morris, Jenny (1861 - 1935)
Credit notes: Purchased 1986

This bag was designed and made by William Morris’s two daughters, May and Jenny. It was designed by May to contain a ‘Psalter’ (a book of psalms), from William Morris’s extensive collection of medieval manuscripts. The bag is made of indigo linen and embroidered by Jenny in silk with the word “Psalterium” in Gothic script. Stitches include back stitch, stem stitch, long & short stitch, loop stitch, satin stitch, couching and buttonhole stitch round edges with words filled in with chain stitch, pomegranate is padded laid work, surface couched in gold thread.

Details

Date: c.1890s
Dimensions: 127 x 163.8
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F205
Designer and maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Presented by Mary Annie Sloane, 1962

Wrap or cloak made from fine navy blue woven wool cloth with broad band of Chinese embroidery around neck and down one side along front opening and around cuffs and sleeves with pink chrysanthemums and butterflies. Coloured silk and metal thread worked in satin, stem, long and short, French knots and running stitches. The wrap is thought to have been made by May Morris and the embroidery is likely to be 19th century and of Chinese origin. It was acquired by May’s friend the artist Mary Sloane at the Kelmscott Manor Auction in 1938, Lot 124, for £2.6s.

Details

Date: c.1857
Dimensions: 134.6
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: woven
Catalogue number: H12
Attributed designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Owner: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Owner: Morris (née Burden) | Jane | 1839 | 1914
Credit notes: Presented by Central School of Arts and Crafts (London County Council), 1954.

This woven white cotton sideless gown is part of a group of costume items that also includes a dress and cloak, both also in the collection. They were all reputed to have been designed by William Morris for use as costume props to be worn by models, notably his wife Jane, at the time of the decoration of the Oxford Union murals in 1857. The gown has been linked to a 1858 study by Morris for ‘La Belle Iseult’, his only easel painting which is now in the Tate collection.

Details

Date: reg 15 April 1875, printed 1917-1940
Dimensions: 184.8 x 97.2
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F211
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Mary Annie Sloane bequest, 1962

Tulip was designed by William Morris in 1875 and manufactured by Wardle & Co. in Leek, Staffordshire. The design features horizontal rows of variagated tulips and acanthus leaves. The Gallery holds the original design and wood blocks used to print the cotton. Morris advised would-be designers to create forms of flowers and leaves ‘that are obvioulsy fit for printing with a block; to mask the construction of our pattern enough from counting the repeats‘ (Some Hints on Pattern Designing, 1880)

Details

Date: 1870s - 1880s
Dimensions: 32 x 54
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F145a
Designer: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Maker: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner), Lucy (1839 - 1910)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Hitch, 1954

Night drewss case embroidered by Lucy Falkner. Natural cotton twill embroidered with background of apricot wool on top half, yellow wool on bottom half; the top half decorated with flowers in buff-pink wools and silks with central wool pom-poms or rosettes enclosed in running scroll of leaves, the bottom half decorated with horizontal band of sheaf of lilies with overall pattern of clumps of leaves in background; the edge of the top decorated with plaited woolen braid and tassels.

Lining of pink silk printed with white flowers.

Details

Date: designed 1876, manufactured before 1940
Dimensions: 66 x 97.8
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F5
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

William Morris designed ‘African Marigold’ in 1876, the design was registered 7th October 1876 but probably not produced until a few years later. The pattern features small marigolds, with larger stylised lilies and curling ribbons of willow and acanthus leaves. The original design is in the gallery’s collection (see BlA464) as well as 23 original printing blocks. Morris worked with the master-dyer Thomas Wardle in Leek, Staffordshire when first manufacturing this design on silk in 1880-81. However, a letter from Morris to Wardle on 8 February 1881 shows that Morris was not pleased with the Wardle’s attempts:

‘I am sorry to say that the last goods African marigold and red marigold sent are worse instead of better: they are infact unsaleable; I should consider myself disgraced by offering them for sale: I laboured hard on making good designs for these and on getting the colour good; they are now so printed & coloured that they are no better than caricatures of my careful work.’

Although Wardle and Morris’s relationship started out well, by the early 1880s Morris’s exacting standards took on a strain on the working relationship. Later in 1881, Morris took over the dyeing and block-printing process of his fabrics at his own factory, Merton Abbey.

This example was acquired by the Gallery from Morris & Co. in 1940 when the business closed.

Details

Date: designed 1876
Dimensions: 78.7 x 31.7
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: BlF256
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Manufacturer: Wardle and Co. (1872 - 1908)

William Morris designed ‘African Marigold’ in 1876, the design was registered 7th October 1876 but probably not produced until a few years later. The pattern features small orange marigolds, with larger stylised lilies and curling ribbons of acanthus leaves. The original design is in the gallery’s collection (see BlA464) as well as 23 original printing blocks. Morris worked with the master-dyer Thomas Wardle in Leek, Staffordshire when first manufacturing this design on silk in 1880-81. However a letter from Morris to Wardle on 8 February 1881 shows that Morris was not pleased with the Wardle’s attempts:

Details

Date: late 1890s - early 1900s
Object Type: textile
Catalogue number: F142
Owner: Housman, Clemence (23 November 1861 - 6 December 1955)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This dress originally belonged to the woodcut artist and suffragette Clemence Hausman (1861-1955). The dress is of the Aesthetic style, in green velvet (now faded) with gathered bodice, bell shaped sleeves and neckline and sleeves embroidered in scarab design in silk thread. Hausman was sister of the painter, illustrator and author Laurence Hausman and together they co-founded the Suffrage Atelier, producing propoganda for the women’s suffrage movement. The dress was given by Clemence Hausman to the amateur dramatic society the Street Players, which was founded by Laurence Hausman. The dress was later purchased by the Gallery from the The Street Players in 1954.

The dress is made of green-grey velvet with gathered bodice caught in at waist with green and gold cord with 3 tassels at either end; bell-shaped sleeves; neckline and sleeves embroidered in art nouveau style motifs in satin stitch in violet, blue and green silks. Deep oval neckline in-filled with white silk chiffon; undersleeves, gathered at the wrist, also of similar white chiffon. The bodice is lined with green silk fabric. There are 7 metal stays. The central back opening is fastened with metallic hooks and eyes.

Details

Date: designed 1876, made 1880s
Dimensions: 267 x 150
Object Type: textile
Material: silk and linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F434
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Maker: Morris (née Burden) | Jane | 1839 | 1914
Maker: Morris, Jenny (1861 - 1935)
Credit notes: Purchased with support from The Art Fund and The Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 2013

Jane Morris was a skillful embroiderer but this is one of very few surviving pieces that can be definitively attributed to her hand. She worked it with her eldest daughter, Jenny basing the design on an original 1876 design by William Morris.

The design was sold through the Royal School of Art Needlework in London in the late 1870s. This version was exhibited at the first Arts and Crafts exhibition in 1888. Later it was sent by May Morris, the younger daughter of Jane and William Morris, to Paris for the Louvre exhibition of British and Irish decorative work in 1914. The remains of the exhibition label was stitched to the reverse.

Details

Date: 1874-1876
Dimensions: 86.3 x 628.7
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F140c
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Maker: Johnson, Florence
Maker: Bell, Margaret (1820 - 1886)
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 (see D187 and D299). The exquisite embroidery was executed by the wife and daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Margaret Bell and Florence Johnson, respectively.

Details

Date: 1930
Dimensions: 411.5 x 320
Object Type: textile
Technique: machine-woven
Catalogue number: N18
Designer: Brangwyn, Frank, Sir (1867 - 1956)
Manufacturer: James Templeton and Company, Glasgow, Scotland
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Doris Locke, her children Heather and Ian and grandson Stephen Maitland-Oxley, 2013

Carpet design by Frank Brangwyn. Machine-woven carpet with beige ground and border. Pink, green, blue and yellow swirling abstracted floral patters radiating out from the center. Fragile with several holes, fraying but colours well preserved. Initialled twice in border. Produced by Templeton & Co. for Pollard Exhibition.

Details

Date: c.1880s
Dimensions: 163 x 102
Object Type: textile
Material: woollen pile on cotton warp
Technique: hand-knotted
Catalogue number: N9
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss M.L. Wooldridge, 1955

Hand knotted Hammersmith rug with border of pairs of birds. The border featured on a plain carpet, now in the collection of Peterhouse College, Cambridge. The pairs of birds have similarities to embroidery designs by May Morris, and Linda Parry has suggested it may point to her involvement in the Firm at that time. The original design for this border is in the V&A (E.301-1939).

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).

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 1887
Dimensions: 181 x 147.3
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F281
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Margaret I. Miller, 1979

Curtain made up from 3 widths of ‘Cherwell’ fabric in a turqouise colourway, with Morris & Co. lining fabric. ‘Cherwell’ was designed by John Henry Dearle in 1897 as a velveteen and a cotton, from 1891 it was also used as a design for a wallpaper. The curtains have a label from Morris & Co.’s Oxford Street shop, dating the curtain to between 1887-1917, when the firm moved to George Street.

Details

Date: c. 1884
Dimensions: 102.5 x 52
Object Type: textile
Material: woollen pile on cotton warp
Technique: hand-knotted
Catalogue number: N1b
Designer: Century Guild
Maker: Morris & Co.
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942

This small Hammersmith Rug was probably designed by Herbert Horne or Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo for the Century Guild. Between 1884 and 1888, Morris & Co. were responsible for manufacturing a small group of rugs for the Century Guild, which were exhibited at Arts and Crafts exhibitions, sold through the Morris & Co. shop and advertised in the Century Guild’s publication Hobby Horse.

Details

Date: designed 1884
Dimensions: 152.4 x 96.5
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F373
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Helen Brooks, 1997

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: printed 1917-1940
Dimensions: 761 x 97
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F398b
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Lee, 1998

William Morris design Willow Bough as a wallpaper in 1887. It was adapated for fabric around 1895. This example is printed with the Morris & Company mark, which they used after moving to retail premises in George Street, Hanover Square, London in 1917.

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 28 x 33.6
Object Type: textile
Material: velveteen
Catalogue number: F243
Designer: Liberty & Co, Ltd
Manufacturer: Wardle and Co. (1872 - 1908)
Credit notes: Miss Elinor Pugh bequest, 1963

Printed red velveteen of produced by Wardle & Co. The design appears as a black and white block print proof on paper in the Whitworth’s Thomas Wardle and Co ‘Sample Book, Block Records (1880-1884), T.14007.60. A note alongside the proof in the sample book details:

No.30 The block belongs to Thomas Wardle

Original design No. in Catalogue Registered, No.389715 Nov 9th 82 for 2 years

Size of block 11 3/8″ wide 14 3/8″ long

Size of repeat 5¾” wide 4¾” long

The block will repeat on O (in blue pencil)

Details

Date: 1884
Dimensions: 44.1 x 30.5
Object Type: textile
Material: velveteen
Catalogue number: F242
Manufacturer: Wardle and Co. (1872 - 1908)
Credit notes: Miss Elinor Pugh bequest, 1963

‘Papara’ is a printed red velveteen of pomegranates, carnations and palmettes produced by Wardle & Co. A two-colour (dark blue outline with a indigo filling) block print proof on paper is in the Whitworth’s Thomas Wardle and Co ‘Sample Book, Block Records – Page 6’ (1909-1930), T.14008.6. A note alongside the proof in the sample book details that it was based upon plate 118 from Fischbach’s ‘Ornamente der Gewebe’ which shows an illustration in black and white, described as a 17th woven silk, probably from Lyons or Tours “in the museum in Nuremberg”. The full transcript of Wardle’s sample book reads:

109

No.109.Two Blocks. To fit Velvet. 26″ width

Size 13 inches square

Original design No.118 Fishbach. (sic) Registered 12146, 30 August 1884

Size of repeat 13 inc x 13 inc

No.13’s.

According to the Whitworth, the code 13,s indicates the pattern was produced on commision to an external company.

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 28 x 40.6
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton velvet
Catalogue number: F241
Retailer: Liberty & Co, Ltd
Manufacturer: Wardle and Co. (1872 - 1908)
Credit notes: Miss Elinor Pugh bequest, 1963

Printed red velveteen of strawberries produced by Wardle & Co. The design appears as as a black and white block print proof on paper in the Whitworth’s Thomas Wardle and Co ‘Sample Book, Block Records (1880-1884), T.14007.28. A note alongside the proof in the sample book details:

No.14 P.C. 14 rows

The block belongs to Thomas Wardle

Original design No. 468 in Catalogue Registered No.389710 Nov. 9th 82 for 2 years

Size of block 10″ wide 15″ long

Size of repeat 2½” wide 2½” long

The block will repeat onO (in blue pencil)No.1 prints outline of the whole pattern.

Details

Date: design registered 15 April 1875
Dimensions: 140 x 97
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F210
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: Miss M A Sloane bequest, 1962

At Morris’s factory in Merton Abbey the printer pressed the printing block into a dye-pad and then positioned it 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. When the first colour had dried, the second colour was applied.

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. Ionides, 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.

Details

Date: c.1909-10
Dimensions: 70.5 x 278.7
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on linen
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F102
Designer and maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1951

This embroidered panel was made as a hanging for May Morris’s sitting room at 8 Hammersmith Terrace. A photograph survives of the embroidery in situ (Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museums). The central motif shows Kelmscott Manor, the Morris family country retreat in Oxfordshire, linked to Hammersmith Terrace by the river Thames which flows past both houses. May gave the embroidery to Sydney Cockerell in September 1923, when she was leaving Hammersmith Terrace for good to live at Kelmscott Manor (see letters from May to Cockerell in the Gallery’s collection and related correspondence in British Library (BL Add.MSS 52740). May was dissipointed that the wool embroidery had faded but described the little picture of Kelmscott as ‘rather amusing’.

The first seven lines of the text in Gothic script are from the central verse of the poem June, which prefaces the story of The Love of Alcestis in Morris’s epic poem Earthly Paradise:

See, we have left our hopes and fears behind

To give our very hearts up unto thee;

What better place than this then could we fin

By this sweet stream that knows not of the sea,

That guesses not the city’s misery,

This little stream whose hamlets scarce have names,

This far-off, lonely mother of the Thames?

Additional lines are attributed to the scholar and poet Sir Walter Raleigh:

Though our songs cannot banish ancient wrong

Though they follow where the rose goes

And their sounds swooning over hollow ground
Fade and leave the enchanged air bare,
Yet the wise say that not unblest he dies
Who has know a single May Day.

Details

Date: 1890s
Dimensions: 60 x 60
Object Type: textile
Material: silks on fine gauze
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F368
Designer and maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Gift by Mrs Stephanie Godwin, 1995

This design was one of May Morris’s most successful embroidery designs. The original design is in the V&A E.956-1954. Examples also exist in the collections of Manchester School of Art, Crabtree Farm and Museum of South Australia. This example is particulaly fine and showcases May Morris’s technical skill, the overall design is worked in split, long, short and satin stich in silks on a gauze background. The outer border of the roundel is inscribed with the opening lines of Robert Herrick’s (1591-1674) poem ‘Welcome, maids of honour, you do bring in the Spring and wait upon her,’ worked in Gothic lettering. Four birds with outstretched wings are placed in the four corners.

Details

Date: design registered 17 June 1882
Dimensions: 64.8 x 95.9
Object Type: textile
Material: printed cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: F22
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

Bird and Anemone was designed by William Morris in 1881 and the design registered on 17th June 1882. The monochrome pattern is one of only three designs issued by Morris as both a wallpaper and a printed cotton. Although they were produced at approximately the same time, the narrow upright rectangular repeat suggests it was however probably first intended as a textile design. The pattern was one of the first textiles to be printed at Morris’s factory Merton Abbey, and he produced it in this red colourway and blue, using the indigo-discharge method.

Details

Date: c.1890-1910
Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.6
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on cotton
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F215
Owner: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Artist: Dodsworth, Lily
Credit notes: Miss Mary Ann Sloane bequest, 1962

The embroidery was done by 13 year old Lily Dodsworth whilst a student at the Municipal School of Art, Birmingham and given to May Morris, presumably when she taught there. The panel depicts a deer grazing beside a flowering tree with a crescent moon above. It is worked in coloured wools on a dark blue piece of cotton in chain stitch, running stitch, stem stitch and satin stitch.

Details

Date: c.1932
Dimensions: 17 x 24
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on canvas
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F338
Designer and maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Purchased 1986

Small bag worked by May Morris in wool in tapestry stitch on canvas in very dark green, the front with the letter ‘M’ worked in brown within a roundel frame, the reverse with broad bottom border band of horizontal stylised leaves and flowers and central decorative motif, narrow decorative borders all round edges on both front and back, and a patterned handle in cream, dull brown, maroon and dull pink wools; interior lining in dark brown silk.

Details

Date: After 1883
Dimensions: 127 x 185.4
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: block-printed
Catalogue number: H27
Owner: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Attributed artist: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Barbara Campbell Thompson, 1967

Hand-stitched long smock with long sleeves, gathered at neckline, sections let into each side which are gathered under the arm, made from Morris & Co. “Borage” chintz, printed in yellow. Probably worn by May Morris. The smock was in the posession of Dr and Mrs Campbell Thompson. Dr Reginald Campbell Thompson was formerly Professor of Assyriology at Oxford University and was May Morris’s executor.

Details

Date: c.1897
Dimensions: 130 x 147
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F204
Designer and maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Miss M A Sloane bequest, 1962

May Morris visited Egypt in the winter of 1896-97. This cloak was made on her return and demonstrates her close study of North African motifs which she combined with more characteristic scrolling leaves. The shape is an approximation of ‘Arabic’ dress. In the late nineteenth century ‘burnouses’ and North African-style cloaks were fashionable accessories for followers of the Aesthetic style, widely available from shops such as Liberty. A photograph of May wearing a similar cloak in 1897 is also in the Gallery’s collection (P645).

The cloak is constructed from two loom widths of dark blue wool. Bands of silk embroidery (satin stitch, single chain stitch and long and short stitch) extend along the shoulder seams and cuffs, with a central motif on the back. May’s designs for the cloak are in the Ashmolean’s collection and show how May changed her mind when stitching the motifs and her white guidelines are also visible in some places where she decided not to stitch. The finished cloak was exhibited at Willow Brook Company, New York in 1910 and the Arts & Crafts exhibition in 1916 (no. 459). It was purchased by May’s friend Mary Sloane from the Kelmscott Manor sale after her death in 1939, Lot 139, for £2.

Details

Date: c.1910-30
Dimensions: 232.4 x 226.1
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F203
Designer and maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Mary Annie Sloane bequest, 1962

This bedspread was made by May Morris. It is embroidered with embroidered knotwork, alternating with sprays of roses and other hedgerow flowers, berries and mistletoe. May used a similar knotwork pattern on one of her most successful designs, a bedspread for William Morris (Kelmscott Manor). The uncharacteristically bright coloured threads in this bedcover (May typically used natural coloured silk thread) suggests it was made towards the end of her life when a greater range of good quality synthetically dyed threads were available. The design for this is also in the collection (A221)

Details

Date: c.1930
Dimensions: 203.2 x 160.7
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F202
Designer and maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Mary Annie Sloane bequest, 1962

This bedspread was made by May Morris. It is embroidered in ivory silk on a white cotton background. May mainly used her favourite embroidery stitch- chain stitch- to create an overall design of geometric network filled with flowers, wreaths and birds. The bedcover belonged to May’s friend Mary Annie Sloane, who exhibited it under May’s name at the exhibition of Cotswold Craftsmanship in 1951.

Details

Date: c.1890
Dimensions: 51 x 51
Object Type: textile
Material: silk
Technique: embroidery
Catalogue number: F435
Maker: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Owner: Carruthers Tozer, Amy (1896 - 1938)
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: Presented by Diana Hillman, 2014.

Rose Wreath was designed by William Morris and this example embroidered by May Morris as a cushion cover for her friend Amy Carruthers Tozer. The design was exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1890.

Further examples of the design include a cushion worked by American heiress Annie May Hegeman, now in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York (1941.71.1)

Details

Date: c.1919-1923
Dimensions: 186.7 x 66
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F123
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Maker: Tooth , Helen Lucas, Lady (4.6.1853 - 17.08.1942)
Credit notes: Presented by Lady Durand, daughter of Lady Lucas-Tooth, 1952

Embroidered panel showing pear tree with sweet peas growing round the trunk, clumps of daffodils and cornflowers growing at the foot. Coloured silks on cream silk, worked in long and short stitch and stem stitch. Designed by John Henry Dearle for Morris & Co. who provided the silks; worked by Lady Helen Lucas Tooth for the drawing room of her daughters house at Somerfield Keynes near Cirencester.

Details

Dimensions: 50 x 47
Object Type: textile
Material: silk
Catalogue number: F431
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Gift of Meg Andrews, 2005

‘Eyebright’ was designed by William Morris in 1883. The original design was printed on cotton. This rare example is in silk. The small ‘net’ repeat is formed of white eyebright flowers and buttercups. The pattern was initially intended to be used as a lining for Morris & Co.’s heavy wool curtains (two widths matched the width of a curtains) but was used as a furnishing fabric in its own right. May Morris claimed that Eyebright, and another pattern Borage ‘were small patterns intended for dress’, revealing Morris’s intention to expand the business beyond interior fabrics. A dress of Eyebright printed cotton made around 1900 is in the The Art Gallery of South Australia’s collection (996A38).

Details

Date: c.1875
Dimensions: 53 x 108
Object Type: textile
Catalogue number: N20
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Manufacturer: Nairns of Kirkcaldy, Scotland
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Transferred from the William Morris Society, 2022

This is William Morris’ only design for linoleum, and his very first foray into designing for floor coverings. The design, featuring African marigolds set against an arched trellis, was reproduced in two colourways, although only this green and yellow version is known. The floral pattern closely resembles the ‘Marigold’ design Morris produced for printed textile, which was registered at around the same time.

Linoleum, composed of linseed oil on a canvas backing, was an inexpensive and practical alternative to woven carpets for Victorian households. Morris’s linoleum was extremely popular, in part due to its low price: it cost just 3s. 10d. per square yard, less than a third of the price of the most popular machine-woven carpeting. Morris & Co. almost certainly outsourced the production to Nairns of Kirkcaldy, Scotland, who were the most prolific producers of linoleum at the end of the 19th century. Original examples are relatively rare, owing much to the everyday heavy use of the surface, however another good example, again in yellow and green, can be seen today in situ in the hallway of Emery Walker’s House and museum at 7 Hammersmith Terrace, London.

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 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: 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. 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: 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.

Object Type: textile

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