Kelmscott Manor
May Morris (1862-1938)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
circa 1880
Materials
Watercolour on paper
Measurements
355 x 250 mm
Order this imageCollection
Wightwick Manor, West Midlands
NT 1287892
Summary
Watercolour and bodycolour on paper, Kelmscott Manor from the Summerhouse by May Morris (1862-1938), circa 1880. A watercolour of Kelmscott Manor through a garden arch across the garden.
Full description
May (christened Mary) Morris was the younger daughter of William Morris and Jane Burden. She was born at Red House, and grew up in the artistic circles of her parents, whose close friends included Edward and Georgiana Burne-Jones, Rossetti, George and Rosalind Howard, and Philip Webb. Burne-Jones' children Philip and Margaret were her friends, she modelled for several pictures by Rossetti including Rosa Triplex (1874) and The Blessed Damozel (1875-8, Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard), and was one of the maidens in Burne-Jones' The Golden Stairs (Tate Gallery). She showed early signs of artistic talent: her earliest surviving work is a pen and ink drawing of Kelmscott Manor dated 1877 (William Morris Gallery). In the late 1870s and early 1880s she drew landscapes, gardens, and buildings in watercolour and pencil, including The Garden at Kelmscott Manor (WIG/ D/ 140) and Kelmscott Manor from the Home Mead (WIG/ D/ 99). However, her work was primarily in the decorative arts, and particularly embroidery. She studied drawing and embroidery at the South Kensington School of Design 1880-83, and in 1885 became Head of the Embroidery Department of Morris and Co. Throughout her life she continued her practice, begun at an early age, of making detailed studies from nature - flowers, leaves etc. - in pencil, ink and watercolour as the basis for her designs. She designed a large number of embroideries, three wallpapers for Morris and Co., and some jewellery, and showed work at most of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society exhibitions 1888-1931. In 1884-5 she was involved in the formation of the Socialist League, through which she met her future husband Henry Halliday Sparling; they married in 1890. She wrote several essays on embroidery, and in 1893 her book Decorative Needlework was published. Sparling left her in 1894, and after they were divorced in 1899 she reverted to her maiden name. In 1896 May left Morris and Co. From 1897 to 1910 she worked at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and lectured extensively around the country. She continued to write numerous articles and essays, and in 1907 founded the Women's Guild of Arts. She edited the Collected Works of William Morris published 1910-15. She exhibited at the Ghent Exposition Universelle in 1913 and in 1914 at the Paris Exposition d'Arts Decoratifs de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande. She inherited Kelmscott Manor on her mother's death in 1914. She spent more and more time at Kelmscott, and in the 1920s went to live there permanently, continuing her work and taking an active part in the local community. Kelmscott Manor, a 16th and 17th century house in Oxfordshire, was William Morris' country home which he rented from 1870 onwards, initially with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Morris had a great affection for the house: he named both his London home in Hammersmith and his Press after it, and it appears as the frontispiece of the Kelmscott Press edition of his News From Nowhere (1892). This view shows the front elevation of the Manor from the summerhouse which still exists. Jane Morris purchased it in 1913. After the death of May Morris in 1938 the house eventually passed to the Society of Antiquaries, but the contents were dispersed at the sale following the death of her companion Miss Lobb in 1939.
Provenance
Jane Morris; May Morris; Miss Lobb; purchased by Sir Geoffrey and Lady Mander at the sale of the contents of Kelmscott Manor 19 and 20 July 1939 (probably lot 299)
Marks and inscriptions
Kelmscott Manor. Watercolour by Miss May Morris-given to Mrs William Morris. (hand written label)
Makers and roles
May Morris (1862-1938), publisher