Violet and Columbine by William Morris: The Woven Textile Explained

Violet and Columbine at a glance

The documented facts about Violet and Columbine are few but consistent on the essentials. All three museum records name William Morris as designer and give 1883 as the design date. The Victoria and Albert Museum dates the tapestry design to 1883 and places it in England. The Art Institute of Chicago attributes production to Morris & Co., London, and lists Merton Abbey, London in connection with the making of its example.

What the records do not settle is equally clear. None of the supplied evidence names the weaver of the surviving textiles, or records any statement by Morris about the design. No later reissues appear in the evidence either.

One caution on the maker question: the Art Institute record lists Merton Abbey in connection with production, but the evidence does not name a weaver for any individual surviving textile.

What the design shows

The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a design for a tapestry entitled Violet and Columbine, dated 1883 and made in pencil and body-colour by William Morris, under museum number O730136. According to the V&A, the design shows violets and columbines, the two flowers that give the pattern its name.

The design object carries two inscriptions that complicate its reading. A pencil inscription reads 'violet and columbine damask', and a cancelled ink inscription reads 'Wall paper 1/4 full size'. The cancellation suggests the wallpaper intention was abandoned, but the evidence does not explain the 'damask' reference or confirm the final intended use.

Beyond the two flowers named by the V&A, no other motifs are securely identified in the supplied records. Any further reading of the pattern would be observation rather than documented fact, so this page stops at the violets and columbines.

The 1883 date and the Boston Foreign Fair question

All three museum records agree on the year 1883. The Victoria and Albert Museum dates the tapestry design to 1883 and places it in England. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's record gives the date as design registered 1883, and the Art Institute of Chicago gives Design 1883.

The first issue question is less settled. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the upholstery fabric Violet and Columbine was not designed until 1883, when it was shown at the Boston Foreign Fair. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Art Institute of Chicago records, by contrast, give only the design year and no first issue date. On the supplied evidence it cannot be confirmed whether the Boston Foreign Fair showing counts as the first issue of the textile.

The practical summary is this: 1883 is secure as the design year across all records. Any claim about a specific first issue event rests on the Victoria and Albert Museum's account of the Boston Foreign Fair alone, and should be presented as such.

How it was made: wool, mohair and double cloth

The surviving textiles document two related but distinct weave types. The Victoria and Albert Museum records two examples of tapestry hangings hand-woven in wool from the Violet and Columbine design. The evidence does not compare these records, so whether they describe the same weave type cannot be established here.

The Merton Abbey context comes from the Art Institute record, which lists Merton Abbey, London in connection with production. More broadly, the Victoria and Albert Museum records that tapestry weaving was established at Merton Abbey when Morris & Co. production was consolidated there in 1881, and that Morris appointed John Henry Dearle to manage production.

What no record supplies is the name of the weaver or workshop behind the individual surviving textiles. The evidence does not name a weaver for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's textile, the Victoria and Albert Museum's hangings or the Art Institute's double cloth, and this page does not guess.

Violet and Columbine sits within a wider group of woven florals from the same period of Morris's work. The parent reference list of Morris woven work gathers these designs in one place, and related pages cover Peacock and Dragon, the Bird woven fabric and Anemone in the same detail.

Uncertain points: tapestry design, damask or wallpaper?

The records describe different object types under the same title. The Victoria and Albert Museum's 1883 work is a design for a tapestry, drawn in pencil and body-colour, yet it bears a cancelled ink inscription reading 'Wall paper 1/4 full size' and a pencil inscription reading 'violet and columbine damask'. Whether the design was intended as a textile or a wallpaper cannot be settled from the evidence.

Meanwhile the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago record woven textiles of the same title and date: the Metropolitan Museum of Art a woven wool textile, the Art Institute a handwoven wool and mohair double cloth. The design drawing and the woven examples clearly belong to the same named pattern, but the exact relationship between the drawing's inscriptions and the woven cloth is not documented in the supplied records.

The honest position is that Violet and Columbine is securely a Morris design of 1883 realised as woven fabric, while the intended use recorded on the design drawing remains ambiguous. Readers citing the design should name the specific object record they rely on.

Where examples survive

Surviving examples are documented in three museum collections, plus two pieces of furniture upholstered in the fabric. The table below lists each record with its institution and object or accession number.

The two V&A furniture pieces show how the fabric was used in the firm's own output. The V&A states that the upholstery fabric was designed by William Morris for Morris & Co., and both the armchair and the cushion came from the Grove, Harborne. The armchair itself is a Philip Webb design, so the frame and the textile have separate attributions.

Morris's woven florals in context

Violet and Columbine was designed in 1883, after Morris & Co. production was consolidated at Merton Abbey in 1881 and tapestry weaving was established there, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Readers wanting the full picture can turn to the reference list of Morris woven textiles, tapestries and carpets, which sets each design alongside its date and technique.

Other woven florals covered in detail on this site include Peacock and Dragon, the Bird woven fabric and Anemone. Each page follows the same method: museum records first, plain description of the pattern, and clear flags on what remains uncertain.