Morris & Co. Tiles and Ceramics

What the museum records show

The Victoria and Albert Museum's records are the single source for the two 'Leaves and Berries' tiles, museum numbers O1139546 and O130784, both listed by the V&A with Morris & Co. as primary maker. The museum describes 'Leaves and Berries' as an early tile design produced by Morris & Co. Because each of these records rests on one institution's catalogue, the attributions on this page are stated with that source named.

The records also name the firm rather than an individual designer. Neither V&A tile record credits a specific designer for 'Leaves and Berries', and this page does not assign one.

Early tile work in context

The 'Phyllida' panel carries the firm's earlier name. According to the V&A, it was designed by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. The firm's full history, from its founding to its later decades, is covered in our history of Morris & Co..

The 'Leaves and Berries' tiles and the Cambridge fireplace

The V&A describes the 'Leaves and Berries' tiles as tin-glazed earthenware painted overglaze, painted in blue, brown and yellow with a design of leaves and berries in the form of a grid. The design was painted onto already glazed and fired tile blanks produced in the Netherlands.

The museum records also preserve something of the tiles' later history. Per the V&A, the 'Leaves and Berries' tiles were formerly set within a fireplace in a house in Cambridge and were removed during renovation in around 2003-4. The same Cambridge fireplace also included a set of six tiles depicting birds, probably designed by the architect Philip Webb, according to the museum. The bird tile designs are also known from stained glass from the Red House, and a panel of glass of this design is in the V&A (C.63-1979).

The V&A's records, citing Richard and Hilary Myers, William Morris Tiles, 1996, note that examples of some of the tiles matching these designs are in the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.

The 'Phyllida' panel

The V&A holds a tile panel titled 'Phyllida', museum number O277770, designed by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. The panel consists of 3 tiles painted with a female figure holding a flowering branch and 10 border tiles painted with a foliate design, hand-painted on tin-glazed earthenware Dutch blanks.

The panel belongs to a wider scheme. According to the V&A, 'Phyllida' is from a series of tiles based on Chaucer's Legend of Goode Wimmen. As tiles, Chaucer's Legend of Goode Wimmen first appeared, per the museum, on a fireplace in Sandroyd, the house designed by Philip Webb for the painter J.R. Spencer Stanhope in 1860. The figure in the 'Phyllida' series was designed for windows at Birket Foster's house The Hill.

The panel's route to the museum is recorded too. The V&A states that the 'Phyllida' panel was one of two acquired by the Museum from 1 Palace Green, the London house of George Howard, the Earl of Carlisle.

Firing problems and what Morris said

Tile painting was not always a comfortable task. The V&A records that Burne-Jones noted in his passbook, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, in 1869: 'To touching up ssome Good Women and I would rather have been boilded ten times over £1.1.0.' The museum also notes that in the V&A's 'Phyllida' panel the figure has suffered some of the technical problems that Morris encountered in the firing of his tiles.

Morris's own writing sets out the principles behind his attitude to surface decoration. Both quotations are recorded by the V&A.

Disputed dates and open questions

The dating of 'Phyllida' is not settled even within the V&A's own record. According to the museum, the record gives production dates of 1864 to about 1870, with a second production date of 1868 to about 1870. Other questions remain open: the records do not name the designer of the 'Leaves and Berries' pattern or of the border tiles of the 'Phyllida' panel, so neither attribution can be made here. The full contents of the Myers 1996 reference, and the dates over which the firm's tile production began and ended, are likewise not established in the evidence used for this page.