Flowerpot by William Morris: History of the Printed Textile

What the pattern shows

The Flowerpot pattern shows vases of flowers within a leafy trellis. That is the extent of what the museum records describe, and it is as far as secure description goes. The evidence does not identify which specific plants appear in the design, so any plant-by-plant reading would go beyond the record.

A trellis setting places Flowerpot in company with Morris's earlier pattern work. According to the V&A, his first wallpaper was Trellis in 1862, followed by Daisy in 1864 and Fruit in 1865, so the device of a structured framework holding flowering motifs was one he returned to across his career.

Design date and attribution

The V&A records the Flowerpot furnishing fabric as designed by William Morris for Morris & Co. and dates it to 1883. This attribution rests on a single institution's record, so it is stated here as the V&A's dating and attribution rather than as an independently confirmed fact.

The 1883 date is a design date. The evidence does not supply a first issue or registration date for the pattern, and the two are not the same thing: a design may be drawn in one year and issued, printed or registered in another. No registration record appears in the material used for this page.

One of the two V&A fabric holdings, O270946, has a Morris & Co. label attached, which ties the surviving cloth to the firm's own production. The other fabric, O88654, is described by the V&A as a lining fabric printed by Morris & Co., a humbler use than a main furnishing chintz.

How the fabric was made

The Flowerpot fabric is indigo-discharged, block-printed cotton. In indigo discharge work the cloth is treated so that the deep blue ground is removed or lightened where the pattern is printed, leaving the design in the paler areas against the blue. The V&A's record for the fabric gives this technique directly.

According to the V&A, Morris & Co. consolidated production at Merton Abbey in 1881, when tapestry weaving was established there and John Henry Dearle was appointed to manage production, but the museum records for this design do not state that Flowerpot was printed there, so the connection cannot be made from the record alone.

The embroidered Flowerpot and a tangled record

The V&A holds an embroidered picture titled Flowerpot, museum number O88437. The museum states that the embroidered pattern is probably William Morris's last design for embroidery, which makes the object significant regardless of the uncertainties around its dates.

The record is not straightforward. One V&A account gives the embroidered picture as designed in 1876 and made by May Morris between 1890 and 1900 in England. Another V&A page lists it as designed by William Morris and Mary Morris, dated 1878 to 1880, England. The museum therefore gives two different design attributions and two different date ranges for the same object, and the evidence does not explain whether Mary Morris refers to May Morris.

May Morris's role in the firm's embroidery is well documented elsewhere in the record. According to the V&A, she was William Morris's youngest daughter and manager of the embroidery section of Morris & Co. The museum also records that in 1885 Morris stepped away from direct involvement with embroidery, putting May, then aged 23, in charge, and that Morris, May and John Henry Dearle produced designs for completed embroidery panels and for kits to embroider at home, including cushion covers, fire screens and portières.

According to the V&A, embroidery became a more significant part of the business after the opening of Morris & Company's 'all under one roof' shop in Oxford Street in 1877. The museum also records that the firm showed its embroidery publicly early on: a fabric stitched by Jane Morris won Morris's new company an award at the 1862 International Exhibition.

No documented statement by William Morris about Flowerpot appears in the evidence used for this page. If one exists in letters or lectures, it is not recorded here, and this page makes no claim about his own words on the design.

Museum examples

Three V&A object records document Flowerpot. No second holding institution appears in the evidence, so the Victoria and Albert Museum is the only named location for surviving examples on this page.

Related designs

Flowerpot shares its indigo-discharge technique with other Morris printed cottons. Strawberry Thief is another indigo-discharged chintz by Morris, and its profile covers the same printing method applied to one of his best-known patterns. Flowerpot sits within the wider group of printed cottons catalogued in our Morris chintz list.

According to the V&A, the firm established tapestry weaving there in 1881 under John Henry Dearle's management. The museum also records that The Forest tapestry, designed by William Morris, Philip Webb and John Henry Dearle and made by the Merton Abbey workshop in 1887, shows that combined output at its height.