This design is one of the most iconic designs of the Century Guild. Known as ‘Angel with Trumpet’ or ‘Praise of the Soul’, it was designed by Herbert Horne and exhibited at a number of exhibitions for the Century Guild. Not all contemporary critics were impressed, one reviewer of the Manchester Royal Jubilee exhibition in the Journal of Decorative Art (Nov. 1887) described it as ‘at the best a very weak effort’. Nevertheless it is now seen as exemplifying the Guild’s swirling designs that preempted the Art Nouveau era. As well as velveteen it was also produced as a printed cotton (see other examples in the collection). The two differ in one detail; in the cotton the Angel’s halo contains a cross (usually signifying Jesus Christ), in the velveteen it has a dot, suggesting Horne ammended the design and that the velveteen was produced after the cotton.
