The Artichoke Embroidery Designed by William Morris

What the Artichoke design shows

The completed hanging recorded by the Victoria and Albert Museum shows a repeating, stylised design of blue and brown artichoke heads and leaves, surrounded by flowering buds and leaves in shades of pink, green, cream, orange, brown and yellow. The top border carries a repeating design of artichoke and tulip-like flowers with interlacing foliage.

The V&A describes the design as showing repeating artichokes in a traditional pattern structure, and reads it as an illustration of Morris's fascination with Middle Eastern patterns and the designs of early Italian brocaded silks and velvets. That reading belongs to the museum's record rather than to any statement by Morris himself, and this page treats it as such.

No other plant species is identified in the sources used here, so the description stops where the records stop.

Who designed it and who stitched it

The Victoria and Albert Museum's record for the design, object O1261697, lists it as an embroidery design in the form of a watercolour drawing, with William Morris as primary maker and a production date of c.1877 in Britain. Attribution here rests on the museum's record; no other source is cited in the evidence used for this page.

According to the V&A record, the design was commissioned by Ada Phoebe Godman, who lived at Smeaton Manor in North Yorkshire. She asked Morris in 1877 to produce a design for wall-hangings for her drawing room, for her to embroider. The museum lists Mrs Ada Phoebe Godman as embroiderer on the design record, and as maker on the record for the completed hanging O78757, with the place given as Yorkshire.

The division of labour is therefore clear in the records: Morris supplied the design, Godman supplied the needlework. The V&A's brief description credits the wall-hanging itself to Morris & Co., British, 1877, though the records used here do not detail who supplied the materials for the completed hangings.

The wider picture of his printed, woven and embroidered textiles is covered in our guide to Morris textiles.

The commission and its long life at Smeaton Manor

According to the Victoria and Albert Museum record, the design was delivered on 31 August 1877. That delivery date is the firmest date attached to the design in the sources used here.

The end of the work is far less firm. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, an existing drawing of Mrs Godman shows that she was still completing the embroideries in 1900, twenty-three years after the design reached her. The Victoria and Albert Museum accordingly dates the completed hanging O78757 to 1877-1900, while also giving a production date of 1877.

The honest reading is a span rather than a single date. The design was drawn and delivered in 1877; the needlework continued for decades. No separate first issue or registration date for the design appears in the records used here.

Materials and stitches of the completed hanging

The V&A record for the hanging O78757 describes it as embroidered in crewel wools on linen, worked in long and short, stem and satin stitches with French knots. It carries woven woollen braid and fringing, and is backed with natural coloured hessian.

The fringes are badly faded, and areas of unfaded embroidery and some original drawing are covered at the bottom edge. The fading of the fringes against surviving unfaded areas gives a physical record of how the colours have shifted since the hanging was made.

Whether other versions of the design used the same stitch range is not stated in the evidence.

Where examples can be seen today

Three records in the Victoria and Albert Museum document the design and its worked versions. The design itself is O1261697, a watercolour drawing. The museum also owns one of the completed hangings, T.166-1978, which has been displayed in the British Galleries, and a second hanging, O78757, dated 1877-1900.

Further hangings following the design are in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, London. The records used here do not give object numbers for those two examples.

According to the Victoria and Albert Museum brief description, the wall-hanging is credited to Morris & Co., British, 1877, which is the only manufacturer credit in the records used here.

A second household: the Beale hangings at Standen

According to the V&A, another pair of hangings following the same design was embroidered by Mrs Margaret Beale and her daughters for their home, Standen, in East Sussex.

The records used here do not date the Beale hangings or describe their stitches.

Open questions and what the records do not settle

Several points cannot be settled from the evidence used for this page, and it is better to list them than to paper over them.

The following remain open:

• No documented statement by William Morris about the Artichoke design appears in the records used here.
• The Victoria and Albert Museum brief description credits Morris & Co. as manufacturer, but the records do not detail who supplied the materials for the completed hangings.
• The Victoria and Albert Museum holds an Artichoke carpet sample designed by William Morris, manufactured by Heckmondwike Manufacturing Company, 1875-1880, England, museum no. T.188-1984. It cannot be confirmed from the evidence used here whether this is a reissue of the same design or an unrelated design sharing the name.
• Object numbers for the Fitzwilliam Museum and William Morris Gallery hangings are not given in the records used here.

If any of these points matters to your own research, the Victoria and Albert Museum object records for O1261697, T.166-1978 and O78757 are the place to check the details as they stand.

Artichoke among Morris's early embroideries

Several other documented embroideries from this circle are covered in detail elsewhere on this site.

Elsewhere on this site you can read The "If I Can" Embroidery, The Daisy Hanging and The Red House Heroines Embroideries.