This tile of a stylised sunflower by William De Morgan was known as ‘BBB’, after the Norwich firm of Barnard, Bishop and Barnard who made cast-iron fireplaces and supplied tiles for use in conjunction with them.
These tiles with a two-tile repeating pattern, known as B.B.B., named after Barnard, Bishop & Barnard, the firm that awarded the De Morgan factory its first major tile contract. During the factory’s 35 years of continuous production, thousands of tiles in this pattern were sold. Although many color variations exist, they typically fall within the standard Persian-inspired palette favored by De Morgan.
