Persian and Islamic Influence on William Morris

The short answer: where Persian influence is actually documented

The strongest documented case for Persian design influence in this circle belongs to Thomas Wardle, not to William Morris. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a dress fabric of block-printed tusser silk carrying a Persian design in red, made by Wardle in Leek around 1878. The museum describes the design as showing the influences of Persian and Turkish design, reflecting the manufacturer's interest in historical Eastern patterns and the general nineteenth-century fashion for non-European patterns.

For Morris, the picture is different. The objects the record documents, from his wallpapers to his chintzes and stained glass, trace back to medieval herbals, a sixteenth-century Italian velvet and related historical material. That is an important distinction, and the rest of this article keeps it visible.

Morris, Wardle and the historical turn

The Victoria and Albert Museum states that Morris looked backwards into history for alternatives to contemporary machine-age goods, producing work that revived craft-based styles and techniques from the past. It also explains why the sources the record names for Morris are so often specific, dated objects rather than vague categories.

Wardle's career ran on a parallel track. He was a leading textile manufacturer and dyer working in Leek, Staffordshire, who took over his father's dyeworks in the early 1870s. His interest in historical Eastern patterns, which the V&A identifies in the Persian silk, grew out of a working life spent on dyeing and printing. Morris's own rejection of cheap industrial colouring is covered in a closer look at Morris and aniline dyes a closer look at Morris and aniline dyes.

The Wardle silk: a Persian design in tusser silk

The key object is a dress fabric of block-printed tusser silk with a Persian design in red, made by Thomas Wardle in Leek around 1878. Tusser is the wild silk of India, a material Wardle championed for years. The Victoria and Albert Museum's description ties the pattern directly to Persian and Turkish design and to the wider nineteenth-century appetite for non-European patterns.

The dyeing problem behind the fabric is part of the story. Tusser silk fibres resisted dye, and Wardle overcame that resistance in the early 1870s by first bleaching the silk. That technical step made the wild silk usable for printed dress fabrics of this kind.

The design travelled beyond silk. According to the V&A, the pattern was also block printed on cotton, and a version was shown at the 1888 Arts and Crafts Exhibition.

Our collection of Arts and Crafts printed textiles and related designs browse the collection gives a sense of the range.

What the evidence shows about Morris's own sources

When the record turns to Morris himself, the documented sources are medieval, herbal and Italian rather than Persian. Morris owned copies of several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century herbals, including John Gerarde's The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes of 1597. The Victoria and Albert Museum links his early 'Primrose' and 'Daisy' tiles to this preoccupation, describing them as showing his early interest in repeat patterns of small clumps of flowers and the visual influence of medieval herbals.

The wallpaper record follows the same line. According to the V&A, 'Daisy' was the first wallpaper issued by Morris, Faulkner, Marshall & Co., in 1864. How such repeats were built up from source material is set out in our guide to Morris's pattern structure how Morris built a repeating pattern, and the visual signatures of these sources are covered in more detail on recognising Arts and Crafts patterns how to recognise an Arts and Crafts pattern.

The clearest documented textile source is Italian, not Persian. The V&A records that the main source of inspiration for 'Wandle', Morris's chintz of 1884, was a sixteenth-century Italian brocaded velvet acquired by the South Kensington Museum in 1883, a year when Morris was helping the museum select pieces to purchase. 'Wandle' was Morris's most ambitious repeat in terms of scale, and its 'barber's pole' motif has medieval origins. In adapting the velvet, Morris substituted large stylised chrysanthemum heads for the crowns used in the original pattern.

Stained glass completes the documented group. The V&A holds stained glass panels designed by William Morris and made by Morris & Co., dated 1872 to 1874 and made in England, museum number C.677-1923.

Common misconceptions and open questions

The most common error is to transfer the Wardle evidence to Morris. The Persian design the Victoria and Albert Museum documents belongs to a silk made by Thomas Wardle in Leek. The record does not establish Persian influence on Morris personally, does not quote any statement by Morris on the subject, and does not say whether Morris owned or studied Persian or Islamic art objects, manuscripts or textiles.

Even the Wardle object leaves questions open. The following points cannot be settled from the record reviewed here.

Open questions flagged by the evidence:

• The name or title of the Persian design on the Wardle silk, which the Victoria and Albert Museum record does not give.
• Whether any Morris design is directly identified as showing Persian or Islamic influence. The documented sources are medieval, herbal and Italian instead.
• What Morris himself said about Persian or Islamic influence. No quotation by Morris on the subject appears in the record.

A practical note for collectors: some commercial pieces are Morris-attributed patterns whose design names are not identified. One example in our range is a carpet in blue, coral and red with an Arts and Crafts border the blue, coral and red Arts and Crafts carpet, described visually rather than by design name until the identification is confirmed.