Morris & Co armchair upholstered in Little Chintz fabric
Morris & Co.
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1900
Materials
Wood and textile
Measurements
37 ins (h)31 ins (w)26 ins (d)
Order this imageCollection
Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire
NT 1274763
Summary
A Morris & Co. winged armchair c.1900, with splayed arms, moulded wooden legs on brass castors. The chair was originally upholstered in Morris & Co. Little Chintz, designed by William Morris in 1876. Remnants of this fragile original fabric are extant on the chair. For several decades a National Trust cover had concealed the original chair and fabric. In 2018 the chair was re-covered in Morris's Little Chintz.
Full description
A Morris & Co winged armchair c.1900, with splayed arms, moulded wooden legs on brass castors. The chair was originally upholstered in Morris & Co. Little Chintz, designed by William Morris in 1876, and remnants of this fragile original fabric are extant on the chair. Recent research has revealed that the armchair is an original Morris & Co. chair, identified through the chair shape, but also by the front legs with their distinctive moulding. The latter had been hidden by the (National Trust applied) loose cover. The same chair (upholstered in a different fabric) was pictured in the Company’s catalogue Morris and Company: Specimens of Upholstered Furniture. For staging purposes the armchair was re-covered in Morris & Co 'Little Chintz' pattern when this fabric was reproduced for the first time and was in production in 2018, thereby recreating the authentic appearance of the chair. A loose cover of white linen with brown and pink floral and fruit pattern had previously been used for the display by the National Trust (this has now been removed). The armchair appears in several photographs taken by Bernard Shaw in the drawing room of their London flat at Adelphi Terrace circa 1902-04. (NT Shaw Photographs 1715222.99; 1715262.102). Shaw’s friend the playwright Harley Granville-Barker is shown sitting in the Little Chintz armchair in both images. In later years Shaw would often sit in the Morris & Company armchair, reading and listening to his records, or to the radiogram in the corner. Shaw is depicted seated in this chair at Shaw’s Corner in a drawing by Clare Winsten (reproduced in Stephen Winsten, Days with Bernard Shaw, facing page 137). And a photographic self-portrait from 1947 again shows him sitting in the chair with Morris Jasmine Trellis curtains in the background. (NT Shaw Photographs 1715211.55).(Alice McEwan, 2020).
Provenance
Purchased by Bernard and Charlotte Shaw from Morris & Co circa 1900; thence among the Shaws' possessions at Adelphi Terrace, London, before being transferred to Shaw's Corner. The Shaw Collection. The house and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust by George Bernard Shaw in 1950, together with Shaw's photographic archive.
Makers and roles
Morris & Co., manufacturer William Morris (Walthamstow 1834 - Hammersmith 1896), designer