Kennet: The Printed Cotton by William Morris

What Kennet shows

The V&A describes its Kennet furnishing fabric as showing wavy sunflower stems and acanthus leaves over a background of small curling grapevines. The composition sets larger, upright plant forms against a denser ground, so the sunflowers and acanthus read as the main figures and the grapevines as a secondary layer behind them.

This is a description of what the pattern depicts, not an interpretation of it. No source in the museum records used here explains any symbolic meaning for the sunflowers, acanthus or vines, so none is offered. The same caution applies to the name: nothing in the evidence states why the design was called Kennet or links it to the river of that name.

Design date, registration and attribution

The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a Kennet furnishing fabric, object number O270935, described as block printed cotton, designed by William Morris for Morris & Co. and dated 1883. This attribution and date come from the Victoria and Albert Museum's record.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds Kennet with William Morris as designer and records that the design was registered on October 18, 1883. Registration is the date the design was formally recorded, not necessarily the day it was drawn, and the V&A record does not state a registration date.

Both museum records name William Morris as the designer. The attribution on this page therefore rests on the two museum records alone. For the woven silk version discussed below, the attribution is less secure.

The surviving examples: cotton and silk

Four documented examples of Kennet can be cited from museum records. The V&A holds two block printed cottons and one woven silk, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a silk. The V&A cotton O270935 carries physical evidence of its retail origin: it is stamped 'Morris & Company 449 Oxford Street' and has a Morris & Co. label attached.

The stamp and label on O270935 are the closest thing Kennet has to a maker's signature. They tie the surviving cloth to Morris & Co.'s Oxford Street shop, but they do not name the works that printed or wove it.

Cotton or silk: what the records disagree on

The records do not fully agree on what Kennet is made of. The V&A describes its two examples, O270935 and O270934, as block printed cotton, while the Metropolitan Museum of Art records its Kennet as silk, and the V&A separately holds a woven silk version, O271070. The simplest reading is that Kennet existed in both mediums, but the records used here do not state the relationship between the cotton and silk versions.

There is also an attribution question on the silk. The V&A attributes the woven silk O271070 to William Morris, but that attribution is not independently confirmed in the material used here, and no record examined for this page distinguishes between Morris's hand and that of another designer at the firm for the silk version. The cotton attribution to Morris is the firmer of the two.

What is not known about Kennet

Kennet has a documented design date and documented museum holdings, but several ordinary questions about the design cannot be answered from the records used here. Stating the gaps plainly is more useful than filling them with guesswork.

Kennet in context

Kennet belongs to the group of Morris furnishing textiles known as the river patterns, named for English rivers. Within that group it sits alongside designs such as Cray, each examined in its own profile with the same attention to what the records do and do not establish.

For a broader view of Morris's output across wallpapers and fabrics, the guide to William Morris designs sets individual patterns alongside one another and explains how to choose between them. Kennet's own entry there is brief; this page is the fuller record.