Columbines and Bluebells in William Morris Designs

Violet and Columbine at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a woven wool textile titled Violet and Columbine, accession number 23.163.16. According to the Met's record, the design was created by William Morris and registered in 1883.

The Met describes the piece as a woven wool textile measuring L. 88 x W. 69 1/2 inches (223.5 x 176.5 cm). The museum has also released the record under Open Access, so the image is in the public domain and can be studied freely.

The title is the strongest evidence connecting the columbine to Morris. It names the flower directly, and the Met's attribution ties the design to Morris himself rather than to a later designer working for his firm.

What the records do and do not establish

The Met's record gives the title Violet and Columbine but no description of the pattern. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the textile was designed by William Morris. That leaves an open question: whether the textile actually depicts columbines, and whether it also depicts violets, cannot be confirmed from the sources used here. The title suggests it, but a title is not a description.

The bluebell is a larger gap. None of the museum records consulted for this page identifies a Morris design showing bluebells. Rather than attach the flower to a design without evidence, this page leaves it as an open question. If you are researching the motif, the honest starting point is that no sourced example has been found here.

Flowers in Morris's textiles and carpets

Flowers run through Morris's documented work in many forms, and the records used here show two further examples. The Met holds a printed cotton textile titled Borage, accession number 23.163.6, designed in 1883 and printed between 1917 and 1923, with Merton Abbey Tapestry Works listed as the manufactory. The Met's record does not state any connection between Borage and the columbine or bluebell.

The Art Institute of Chicago holds a carpet titled Swan House Carpet, designed around 1883 and made in 1887, designed by William Morris and produced by Morris & Co., London, with work at Merton Abbey. According to the Art Institute, the carpet was among the original furnishings of the John J. Glessner House on Prairie Avenue in Chicago, designed by architect Henry Hobson Richardson and completed in 1887.

The Art Institute also notes that Morris began designing hand-knotted and machine-made carpets in the 1870s, and that for the Swan House Carpet he looked to Turkish and Persian rugs for inspiration, using a layout with a central medallion set in a field of interlacing stylized foliage. Again, the museum's record does not link this carpet to the columbine or bluebell. It is included here as context for how flowers and foliage were handled in Morris's documented designs. For a wider view of the subject, see our guide to flowers in Morris designs.

Where to look next among the flower motifs

Other flowers are firmly documented in museum records, and each has its own page. Read our guide to Roses for the rose designs, or the story of Acanthus Leaf for the acanthus leaf motif. Our guide to Tulips covers another flower that appears repeatedly in the documented textiles.

The parent guide gathers these motifs in one place and links out to each study, so it is the quickest route if you want to compare how different flowers were drawn across the designs.