Cherwell printed velveteen

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.1890-1910
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: 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: 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.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.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.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.

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: 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 Miss 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 availble 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.

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: 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: 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. It was bought by Sir Bryan Peters 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: 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

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 1879
Dimensions: 66 x 91.4
Object Type: textile
Material: wools and silks on silk
Catalogue number: F28
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

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”.

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: 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: 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: 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. Ionedes, 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.

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, which she shared with the radical preacher Stewart Headlam.

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.

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: 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: design registered 2 September 1883
Dimensions: 77.5 x 91.4 (per curtain)
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: indigo discharge and block-printed
Catalogue number: F325b
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased with a grant in aid from the V&A, 1978

Details

Date: design registered 2 September 1883
Dimensions: 77.5 x 91.4 (per curtain)
Object Type: textile
Material: cotton
Technique: indigo discharge and block-printed
Catalogue number: F325a
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased with a grant in aid from the V&A, 1978

This design was named after a tributary of the River Thames. The design was based on a piece of seventeenth century Italian cut velvet and purchased in 1883 for the historic textiles collection of the South Kensington Museum, for whom Morris acted as an adviser for collection purchases. This is one of a pair of curtains originally from Miss Frances J. Lefroy, whose parents’ house was decorated by Morris & Co. in the 1890s;

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.

Details

Date: 1879
Dimensions: 52 x 45.5
Object Type: textile
Catalogue number: F131b
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Presented by the County Technical School, Chiselhurst, 1956

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. This piece was part of the original Morris & Co. furnishings at Bullerswood, and formed part of the curtaining of the drawing room. Morris & Co. were commissioned to decorate the interior of Bullerswood, a large house in Chislehurst, Kent- leased by John Sanderson, the owner of a large wool exporting company

Details

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

Details

Dimensions: 57.8 x 87.6
Object Type: textile
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F198
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Presented by Miss E. Pugh, 1961

Details

Date: designed 1878
Dimensions: 163 x 137.2
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F26cii
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Retailer: Morris & Co. Art-Workers Ltd., 17 George Street, Hanover Square, London
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: 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: designed c.1898
Object Type: textile
Material: woven wool
Technique: hand-loom jacquard woven
Catalogue number: F460
Designer: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.

This woven wool was designed by John Henry Dearle for Morris & Co. around 1898. The repeating pattern is formed of orange coloured squirrels amongst a grape vine heavy with fruit. Originally entitled Fox and Grape after the Aesop fable, it was later changed to Squirrel, presumably because the animals more closely resembled the form of a red squirrel. Although many of Morris & Co’s patterns feature birds, beside the rabbits in the popular ‘Brother Rabbit’ pattern and these squirrels, there are no other examples of animals in the Firm’s repeating textile patterns. This example was once one of a pair of curtains and features two widths of decorative fringing at the bottom. The wool was produced on a jaquard hand-loom at Morris & Co’s factory Merton Abbey and came in three colourways. Dearle’s original design drawing is in the Huntington Art Collection, USA.

Details

Date: c. 1890
Dimensions: 208.3 x 116.8
Object Type: textile
Material: wool on cotton
Technique: hand-knotted
Catalogue number: N8
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. 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, which 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

Date: c.1880
Dimensions: 60.8 x 129.5
Object Type: textile
Material: silks on silk
Technique: hand-embroidered
Catalogue number: F342
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Maker: Holiday, Catherine (1839 - 1925)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1992

This cushion cover was embroidered by Catherine Holiday née Raven (1839-1925), who worked as a freelance designer for the embroidery depratment of Morris & Co., from 1876. Holiday was greatly admired by William Morris, who in a letter to her from her husband, was reported to have said “you are the only person he has ever met whose work is as good as the old. Miss Burden [Elizabeth Burden] is all very well but she doesnt know how to put her stitches together like this”. Holiday negotiated her own prices with Morris and her work fetched a high price, larger pieces such as portieres (door hangings) or bed hangings ranged from £100-£150 and Morris was concerned they were too expensive.

Holiday exhibited work at the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society in 1888, and in 1890, where she submitted a wallhanging and portiere, the later a design by William Morris.

Holiday was married to the Arts & Crafts stained glass designer and painter Henry Holiday.

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

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: 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)

Object Type: textile

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