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