Did William Morris Use Peonies? Checking a Popular Assumption

The short answer

Peonies are documented in Morris's work, but only in named objects held by institutions, not as a broad claim about his practice. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a carpet titled Peony and Tulip designed by William Morris for Morris & Co in 1876, and it also holds a wall hanging titled Acanthus, designed by Morris around 1880, whose pattern includes carnations, peonies, tulips and briony among curving leaves and flowers.

That is the whole of the documented case. No institutional source in the evidence makes a general statement that Morris used peonies across his designs, and no verbatim statement by Morris himself about peonies appears in the record. Anyone writing or selling on this motif should keep to the named objects.

The evidence: three documented objects

The Peony and Tulip carpet is the most direct example. According to the V&A, it was designed by William Morris for Morris & Co in 1876 and machine woven by Wilton Royal Carpet Co. Ltd. The museum describes its pattern as two light yellow undulating parallel stems bearing stylised peonies in light yellow and red, overlaying a band of three tulips on leafy stems.

The V&A records the carpet's construction as machine woven Patent Axminster with an undyed hemp warp, a dark brown hemp weft and a cut woollen pile. The museum's own records give the primary date as c.1876 and the brief description as designed for Morris & Co, 1876, so the dating is consistent within that single source.

The second object is the Acanthus wall hanging, which the V&A dates to about 1880 and attributes to William Morris. Its pattern includes carnations, peonies, tulips and briony among curving leaves and flowers. The museum describes the ground as cotton twill entirely covered with silk embroidery, worked in flame stitch, long and short and satin stitches, laid and couch work and French knots. The acanthus leaf is a motif in its own right, covered in more detail in our guide to the Acanthus leaf in Morris designs.

The third example is a traced design for a floral embroidery, which the V&A attributes to May Morris and dates to the 1880s. It shows roses, peonies, tulips and other flowers on a trellis, made for Morris & Co. It is discussed separately below because the attribution and the maker matter.

May Morris and the embroidery design

The traced embroidery design belongs to May Morris, not her father, at least by attribution. The V&A lists the primary maker as May Morris as designer, while the brief description says May Morris (attributed), so the attribution should be treated as probable rather than firm. The design shows roses, peonies, tulips and other flowers on a trellis, prepared for Morris & Co.

May (Mary) Morris, 1862 to 1938, was the daughter of William Morris, 1834 to 1896. According to the V&A, she took over the embroidery section of Morris & Co. in 1885 and took on the firm after her father's death, continuing to provide designs for them. Peony designs from the 1880s therefore sit in a different part of the firm's history from the 1876 carpet.

One further caution: the V&A record for this design has no title in the material available, so it cannot be given a design name. Referring to it as an untitled traced embroidery design attributed to May Morris is the accurate formulation.

What the evidence does not show

Verification means stating the limits as clearly as the findings. The following points are not established by any source in the record:

• No institutional source makes a general statement that Morris used peonies in his designs. The evidence covers three specific objects only.
• No verbatim statement by William Morris himself about peonies appears in the evidence.
• No evidence explains why peonies appear in these designs, and no symbolism of the peony is documented by any named author.
• Beyond the named objects, no evidence confirms whether other peony designs were personally drawn by William Morris rather than another Morris & Co. designer.
• No evidence addresses Morris-style peony prints sold by retailers, or their relationship to documented Morris designs. A Morris-style print is not a Morris design.

This matters because peony imagery is common in goods sold under a general Morris aesthetic. If a print is described as Morris style, that wording signals it is not a documented Morris design, and the distinction should be kept visible. Our collection of William Morris style flower prints is labelled that way for exactly this reason.

Related questions

These are the questions readers ask most often about peonies and Morris, answered from the same sourced record.