Indigo Discharge Printing: The Slow Method Behind Strawberry Thief

What indigo discharge printing actually does

In its hand-made form it is labour intensive. The cloth is first dyed by immersion in indigo, and then areas of it are bleached white again, so the pattern is removed from the ground rather than added to it.

A plain statement of limits is due here. The available sources describe the process only in those two steps, dyeing by immersion and bleaching areas back to white. They do not set out the full technical sequence, and they do not explain why the method produces the crisp outlines it is known for, only that it does.

What the sources do connect is outcome and use. The V&A states that Morris used the complex indigo discharge method to produce Strawberry Thief in 1883, and that the museum's own record of the technique on the surviving fabrics reads as indigo-discharged and block-printed cotton. The printing side was done with woodblocks, by hand, in the manner described in the story of woodblock wallpaper printing.

When Morris took up the method: contractors, Wardle and Merton Abbey

Through the 1870s, Morris had to rely on outside contractors to produce the quantities of material his company required commercially. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, Morris & Co. was founded by William Morris in 1875, producing textiles commercially for sale in two London shops, and earlier still the Firm, called Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. by its directors, had found wallpaper sales limited because Morris's designs did not chime with the fashionable French-style taste of the 1860s. Morris & Co. history covers the firm's full arc.

In 1875 Morris began working with Thomas Wardle, owner of a dyeing works in Leek, Staffordshire, who was keen to re-establish the use of natural dyes. The Victoria and Albert Museum identifies Marigold (1875), a dense pattern Morris also used for wallpaper, as the first textile likely to have been printed by Wardle.

The decisive change came in 1881. According to the V&A, Morris found Merton Abbey, an old textile-printing works near Wimbledon, as a site to consolidate his workshops and take full control of production. The site offered soft water from the River Wandle, ground for washing and drying cloth, and room to build the huge indigo vats that a process like indigo discharge printing demanded.

The surviving examples: Strawberry Thief and Flowerpot

The clearest evidence for the method is the fabric itself. The V&A holds a Strawberry Thief furnishing fabric, museum number O270967, described as block-printed and indigo discharged cotton, designed by William Morris and made by Morris & Co., London, 1883. The museum also holds a second example, museum number O78889, of indigo-discharged and block-printed cotton, with a Morris & Co. label attached.

In the O270967 fabric the thrushes appear in yellow, brown and blue, the flowers in pink, brown and yellow with green leaves, on a blue background. In the O78889 fabric the pattern shows in brown, yellow and shades of green, blue and red on a dark blue ground.

The name has a documented origin. Morris based the pattern and name of Strawberry Thief on the thrushes which frequently stole the strawberries in the kitchen garden of Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire. The V&A records that the fabric was intended for curtains, draping around walls, or loose covers on furniture, and that despite being one of the most expensive printed furnishings available from Morris & Co., it became a firm favourite with clients. our guide to Strawberry Thief follows the design further.

A second documented indigo discharge fabric is Flowerpot. The V&A holds a Flowerpot furnishing fabric, museum number O88654, of indigo discharged block printed cotton, designed by William Morris for Morris & Co., 1883, and records that it was printed by Morris & Co. at Merton Abbey Works.

Why Morris valued the process

According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, Morris admired the depth of colour and crispness of detail that the indigo discharge method produced. The museum also links the technique directly to his design ambition, noting that the crisp outlines offered by indigo-discharge printing allowed Morris to create a series of exuberantly complex designs.

The timeline supports that reading. In 1883 Morris used the complex indigo-discharge print method to produce Strawberry Thief, which although expensive was one of the company's most successful designs. In 1884, the V&A records, Morris produced Wandle, the largest repeat he attempted at 98.4 x 44.5cm, and Cray, his last significant design for a printed textile.

Morris's own writing helps explain the taste such a method served. In his essay The Lesser Arts (1877) he warned against a particular kind of false naturalism:

In the same essay, Morris gave direct advice to those designing wallpapers:

The V&A's reading of his work follows that principle: his designs were always subtle, stylised evocations of natural forms rather than literal transcriptions.

Where the record is uncertain

Several points cannot be settled from the material on record, and it is better to name them than to paper over them.

The documented uncertainties are:

• Production dating of the Strawberry Thief fabrics differs between records: one gives 1883 only, another gives 1883 together with a later production range, and the Flowerpot record likewise carries both a single date and a range.
• Place of production is described inconsistently: one record places the Strawberry Thief fabric in London, the other describes it as British without specifying London as the place.
• The available sources are cut off mid-sentence in their account of Morris's first attempts at the indigo discharge process, so the details of those attempts are not available.
• No available source gives the exact year Morris perfected or first successfully used indigo discharge printing at Merton Abbey.
• No available source states which blocks, or how many blocks, were used to print Strawberry Thief, and none provides a direct quotation from Morris specifically about indigo discharge printing.
• No available source gives prices or cost figures for Strawberry Thief, only the statement that it was among the most expensive printed furnishings sold by the firm.

One further limit on examples: beyond Strawberry Thief and Flowerpot, the available sources identify no other named Morris & Co. textiles printed by the indigo discharge method. According to the V&A, Flowerpot's record gives its materials and techniques and its printing by Morris & Co. at Merton Abbey Works, without stating the process in fuller technical terms.