The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer

Details

Date: 1896
Object Type: book
Material: paper with half holland binding
Catalogue number: K20
Manufacturer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Author: Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340 - 1400)
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Illustrator: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1951

During the last years of William Morris’s life, he was often occupied with the ambitious Kelmscott Press edition of ‘The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer’. The project involved printing a new edition of the complete works of Geoffrey Chaucer with decorated borders and initials, a newly designed typeface and numerous illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones. The book took over four years to complete and included eighty-seven woodcut illustrations by Burne-Jones.

The Kelmscott ‘Chaucer’ was the last great project of Morris’s life and combined his passions for literature and design. The printing of the book also reflected ideas from Morris’s socialist philosophy regarding the division of labour and the rejection of modern mechanisation. In total 438 copies of the book were printed over two years, thirteen were printed on vellum and 425 on handmade paper. Forty-eight paper editions were specially bound in white pig’s skin featuring a design Morris had created. A few months before his death, Morris was shown a copy of the specially bound edition for the first time, which he described as ‘very satisfactory’.

Shown here is the first page of a paper edition of the Kelmscott ‘Chaucer’. The title page, initial letters, and border decoration were all designed by Morris. The first woodcut illustration by Burne-Jones can also be seen and shows a portrait of Chaucer. Morris had to scale down his ‘Troy’ typeface for the Kelmscott Chaucer creating the font seen here. Despite the scaled down font, the book is by far the largest produced by the Kelmscott Press.

Details

Date: c.1882
Dimensions: 96.5 x 48.3 x 49.5
Object Type: furniture
Material: mahogany, leather and brass
Catalogue number: G36b
Designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Retailer: Century Guild
Manufacturer: Collinson and Lock
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1966

The sinuous fretwork in the back of this chair caused a sensation when it was exhibited in 1885. It is now seen as an early precursor of Art Nouveau. Only five of these chairs are known to exist; two in the collection of the William Morris Gallery, one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, one in the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, and the fifth copy is shared between the Huntingdon Library / Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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: 1919
Dimensions: 19.7 x 26 (closed)
Object Type: archival
Catalogue number: J2180
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.

Details

Date: c.1880
Dimensions: 172.7 x 57.3
Object Type: design
Material: pastel on paper
Catalogue number: A136
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: Frank Brangwyn, 1936

This design is a coloured pastel finished drawing from the Morris & Co. East window of St. Martin’s Church, Brampton, Cumbria, 1880-1881. The windows at Brampton are one of Morris & Co’s masterpieces. After the windows were complete, Burne-Jones used coloured chalks to transform his design into this highly finished work.

The pelican feeding its young with drops of blood from its breast is a Christian emblem for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The nest sits on top of a highly stylised tree with sinuous curves. In the 20th century, the art historian Nikolaus Pevsner published this design as a precursor of Art Nouveau.

Details

Date: 1872
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour, bodycolour and pencil on paper
Catalogue number: A259
Artist: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898

This watercolour composition by Edward Burne-Jones is one of four designs for stained glass windows executed by Morris & Co. in 1872. They were made for the 18th century chapel at Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, and depict the Christian story of the birth of Jesus: ‘The Annunciation’, ‘The Nativity’, ‘Adoration of the Magi’, and ‘The Flight into Egypt’. The Morrises were good friends with the then Earl and Countess of Carlisle, George and Rosalind Howard, and would often exchange letters and pay visits. The Howards extensively modernised the interiors of their stately home with Morris & Co. designs during the late 19th century, notably redecorating the chapel and perhaps controversially covering a wall of Pellegrini frescoes with ‘Bird and Anemone’ wallpaper . Much of this was later removed, but the Arts and Crafts additions to the chapel, including these windows, remain to be seen today, a testament to their friendship.

Here, we see ‘Adoration of the Magi’, the visitation of the three kings to the newborn Christ child. This traditional biblical scene features hallmarks typical of Morris & Co. design, including figures dressed in richly coloured medieval attire and intricate leaf patterns in the trees, reminiscent of Morris’s ‘Willow’ wallpaper, also produced in the 1870s. The bold, linear style is somewhat different to the lush, delicately painted masterpieces Burne-Jones became known for, and relates directly to the final product. We can see the artist beginning to imagine how the glass will fit together, which elements will be leaded and which details will be hand painted. This image would then have been worked up into a full-size cartoon before being transferred to glass. A window using this same design was reproduced by Morris & Co. in the early 20th century, and can be seen in the Epiphany Chapel at Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire.

Details

Date: c.1870
Dimensions: 73 x 75.6
Object Type: drawing
Material: chalk on paper
Catalogue number: BrD43
Artist: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Sitter: Morris (née Burden) | Jane | 1839 | 1914
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1940

This chalk study by Dante Gabriel Rossetti depicts the medieval Scottish magician and astronomer Michael Scott placing a ring on the finger of a young girl. The features of the seated central woman are those of Jane Morris, with whom Rossetti was having an affair. The winged figure of love looks up, away from the couple and a draped woman cuts across from the girl’s girdle.

Details

Date: c.1863-64
Dimensions: 60.5 x 127
Object Type: ceramic
Material: tin-glazed earthenware
Technique: hand-painted
Catalogue number: C75
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Orrinsmith (née Faulkner) | Lucy
Retailer: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Credit notes: WMG Purchase, 1953

This tile panel depicts the children’s fairytale ‘Beauty and the Beast’. It was originally installed above a fire place in a bedroom of the artist Myles Birket Foster, at his home The Hill, Witley, Surrey. The scroll on the surrounding Swan tiles is inscribed with a description of the story, ‘How a Prince who by enchantment was under the form of a beast became a man again by the love of a certain maiden’.

The panel was designed by Edward Burne-Jones. The bear was based on sketches specially drawn for him by Philip Webb, who probably observed the animals at Regents Park Zoological Gardens. Lucy Faulkner, the sister of Charles Faulkner, one of the partners of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. painted Burne-Jones designs by hand onto the tiles.

Burne-Jones also designed a similar panel of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ for Birket Foster’s house (now in the V&A Museum, London).

Details

Date: unknown date
Dimensions: 76.2 x 62.3
Object Type: drawing
Material: pencil, sepia and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: D237
Attributed artist: Ruskin, John, 1819, 1900
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1961

This work has been attributed to the artist, critic and thinker John Ruskin, although it is unsigned. Ruskin first saw Rouen in 1835 and wrote of the west porch of the cathedral in his book The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) as ‘the most exquisite piece of pure flamboyant work existing’. Morris was also impressed by this building, writing ‘no words can tell you how its mingled beauty, history and romance took hold of me’.

Details

Date: 1912
Dimensions: 27.5 x 37.5
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W158
Artist: Sloane, Mary Annie (10.12.1867 - 30.11.1961)
Sitter: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Credit notes: Mary Annie Sloane bequest, 1962

The artist was a close friend of May Morris with whom she travelled to Florence and Majorca, and of whom she drew several pencil portraits now in the WMG collection. (D277 and D278a-c). A related watercolour, William Morris’s Bedroom at Kelmscott Manor, is also in the Gallery’s collection (W158) and was also part of the Sloane Bequest. Both W157 and W158 are probably identifiable with two watercolours of ‘Rooms at Kelmscott’ which appeared as lot 329 in the catalogue of the sale of effects at Kelmscott Manor in 1939 after May Morris’s death, when they were bought back by Miss Sloane.

A letter from May Morris to John Quinn (Easter Monday 1912) states ‘I have a guest, who is painting just now, my colleague on the Women’s Guild of Arts. She is doing for me a picture of Father’s bedroom, and another of this room [Tapestry Room] with me half in the picture, at work – her idea – , and if I like them well enough they are going to you. Indeed they were to be done for your birthday, but may not be ready. I wanted to do them myself, dear, but there is no time, and besides mine would have been but clumsy things.’ A second letter to Quinn (25 April 1912) adds ‘I am sorry Miss Sloane’s Kelmscott drawings were not finished in time to send. I hope you’ll like them when they come. They are really rather charming. She is distinguished artist in her line, and a pleasant-house-mate, quiet and serene and contained.’
See ‘On Poetry, Painting and Politics’, ed Janis Londraville,1997, pp.110 and 112.

Details

Date: 1912
Dimensions: 23 x 28.5
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W157
Artist: Sloane, Mary Annie (10.12.1867 - 30.11.1961)
Credit notes: Miss M A Sloane bequest, 1962

The artist was a close friend of May Morris with whom she travelled to Florence and Majorca, and of whom she drew several pencil portraits now in the WMG collection. (D277 and D278a-c). A related watercolour, May Morris in the Tapestry Room at Kelmscott Manor (exhibited at the Royal Academy 1915 (1037), is also in the Gallery’s collection (W158) and was also part of the Sloane Bequest. Both W157 and W158 are probably identifiable with two watercolours of ‘Rooms at Kelmscott’ which appeared as lot 329 in the catalogue of the sale of effects at Kelmscott Manor in 1939 after May Morris’s death, when they were bought back by Miss Sloane.
A letter from May Morris to John Quinn (Easter Monday 1912) states ‘I have a guest, who is painting just now, my colleague on the Women’s Guild of Arts. She is doing for me a picture of Father’s bedroom, and another of this room [Tapestry Room] with me half in the picture, at work – her idea – , and if I like them well enough they are going to you. Indeed they were to be done for your birthday, but may not be ready. I wanted to do them myself, dear, but there is no time, and besides mine would have been but clumsy things.’ A second letter to Quinn (25 April 1912) adds ‘I am sorry Miss Sloane’s Kelmscott drawings were not finished in time to send. I hope you’ll like them when they come. They are really rather charming. She is distinguished artist in her line, and a pleasant-house-mate, quiet and serene and contained.’See ‘On Poetry, Painting and Politics’, ed Janis Londraville,1997, pp.110 and 112.

Details

Date: c.1911
Dimensions: 27 x 21
Object Type: watercolour
Material: pencil and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W155
Artist: Brangwyn, Frank, Sir (1867 - 1956)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1961

The mounted figure in this watercolour by Frank Brangwyn is very close to a similar figure (in reverse) in the centre of a procession in the print ‘Return from a Raid’ (Retour d’un Razzia), etching on copper 12 x 13 3/4 in. 30.4 x 35 cm. executed in 1910 (Gaunt: Etchings of Brangwyn. 170). According to Gaunt the plate was etched from a group of Nativity figures set up on a balcony at Mola (Italy) arranged against the background hills. However, the inscription below this watercolour specifically refers to Taormina, Sicily, where it is known that Brangwyn made at least two watercolours of the same title in 1911. One of these, illustrated in Frank Brangwyn – His Work (2 illustrative folios published by E. d’Alignan and P. Turpin) pl. 37, shows a procession of mounted figures and foot men but differently arranged from W155 and from the etching.

Details

Date: 1870
Dimensions: 94 x 61
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W142
Artist: Brown, Ford Madox, 1821, 1893
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1958

This watercolour is based on a scene from Byron’s play ‘Two Foscari’ (1847-55). Set in fifteenth-century Venice, Foscari, the Doge’s son, has been imprisoned for murder, and is saying farewell to his wife Marina. The layers of pigment have been built up to give the effect of an oil painting. Ford Madox Brown originally designed this as an engraved illustration to Moxon’s edition of ‘The Poetical Works of Lord Byron’ (1870). During his career he painted a dozen scenes from Byron’s work, often changing the scale or medium.

Details

Date: 1882
Object Type: watercolour
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: W104
Artist: Rathbone, Harold Steward (1858 - 1929)
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Philippa Garrett Fawcett, 1938

Harold Rathbone (1858 – 1929) was a member of the prominent Liverpool merchant family. His father Philip (1828 – 1895) chaired the committee which ran the Walker Art Gallery. Rathbone studied at the Slade School of Art and became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown (1821 – 1893). This watercolour from 1882 depicts three bare trees infront of a rippling expanse of water. In 1894 Rathbone founded the Della Robbia Pottery Company, Birkenhead with the sculptor Conrad Dressler, which produced ceramics in an Art Nouveau style.

Details

Date: 1927
Dimensions: 18 x 13
Object Type: watercolour
Catalogue number: BrW83
Artist: Griggs, Frederick Landseer Maur, 1876, 1938
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1940

This watercolour is a preliminary study for an etching of the same title. The church is that of St Michael at Duntisbourne Rouse near Cirencester which stands on sloping ground above a valley through which runs Daglingworth Brook, a tributary of the Churn, and was where Ernest Gimson was married. The plate was etched in 1927, with a lower margin containing the title and a dedication: To the Memory of Ernest Gimson, initialled and dated lower left FLG 1927.

Griggs did the etchings for May Morris’s The Collected Works of William Morris, translating Emery Walker’s photographs for the plates.

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