William Morris's Original Design Drawings and Where They Survive

The drawings the V&A records name

Two design drawings appear in the museum records reviewed, both held by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The first is O1108735, 'Drawing for Portiere William Morris', described by the V&A as an original design for embroidery by William Morris, made about 1875 in pencil and watercolour on paper. The second is O586570, a traced embroidery design attributed to May Morris, British, from the 1880s, executed in red ink and pounced for transfer.

The distinction between the two matters. The V&A attributes the portiere drawing to William Morris himself. The traced design is attributed to May Morris, his daughter, and the attribution should not be blurred. According to the V&A, May (Mary) Morris (1862-1938) took over the embroidery section of the firm in 1885 and took on Morris & Co. after her father's death, continuing to provide designs for embroideries large and small.

A caution on scope: the records consulted here name these two drawings and no others. They do not give the V&A's total holdings of Morris design drawings, and they do not survey other institutions. Anyone needing a comprehensive answer to where Morris drawings survive would need to consult museum records directly, and this page should be read as a report on what one set of records shows rather than a complete census.

A traced design by May Morris, and the embroidery it became

The traced design O586570 is described in detail in the V&A's record. It is lettered 'Welcome Maids of Honour you do bring in the Spring and wait upon her' and shows a floral pattern within a circular border enclosed in a square, with formalised birds with outspread wings in the angles. The V&A describes it as executed in red ink and pounced for transfer, which tells you something practical: the design was prepared to be copied onto fabric for stitching.

An embroidery made to this design is in the collection of the William Morris Gallery, catalogue number F368. So the full chain is documented in the records reviewed here: a traced, pounced design drawing held by the V&A, and the finished embroidery made from it held by the William Morris Gallery.

May Morris's role in the firm gives the drawing its context. According to the V&A, embroidery became a more significant part of the business following the opening of Morris & Company's 'all under one roof' shop in Oxford Street in 1877. Morris, and later his daughter May and assistant John Henry Dearle, produced a large number of designs for completed embroidery panels or 'embroider yourself' kits. In 1885 Morris stepped away from direct involvement with embroidery, putting May, aged just 23, in charge.

One point in the records does not fully agree with itself. The V&A states in one place that May Morris took over the embroidery section of the firm in 1885, and in another that in 1885 Morris stepped away from direct involvement with embroidery, putting May in charge. These are compatible readings of the same handover, but the phrasing differs, and the exact division of responsibility in that year is not settled by the record as reviewed here.

What the drawings show about Morris's design practice

The records reviewed say little about Morris's drawing materials or working method, so it is safer to approach his drawings through his stated principles. William Morris (1834-96) produced over 50 wallpapers during his career, and the V&A says the success of those designs relies on his close observation of nature, with every design centring on plant-based forms. The V&A also characterises his designs as stylised evocations of natural forms rather than literal transcriptions.

Morris set those principles out in his essay The Lesser Arts (1877), where he warned against 'sham-real boughs and flowers' and advised those designing wallpapers 'to avoid falling into the trap of trying to make your paper look as if it were painted by hand'. In the early 1870s, according to the V&A's account, Morris accepted his gift was not for figurative form but for repeat patterns.

The V&A also notes that Morris's wallpaper designs differed from those of the Design Reformers such as Owen Jones and Augustus Pugin, being flat and stylised but without their severe geometric formality. For a fuller account of the method, see more on Morris's pattern structure.

What the evidence here does not cover is the physical making of the drawings themselves. The reviewed records do not describe whether Morris drew his wallpaper designs in pencil, ink or watercolour. No excerpt explains how design drawings were passed to block cutters, printers or embroiderers for Morris's own designs. Readers interested in how the printed papers followed from the designs can turn to our guide to Morris wallpaper.

Where the record runs out

An honest answer to the title question has to stop where the evidence stops. The records reviewed here name three objects: one original design drawing by William Morris, which the V&A catalogues as O1108735, 'Drawing for Portiere William Morris', an original design for embroidery by William Morris of about 1875 in pencil and watercolour on paper; one traced design drawing attributed to May Morris, which the V&A catalogues as O586570; and one finished embroidery in the William Morris Gallery made to May Morris's design (F368). They do not say where Morris's original design drawings survive overall.

The reviewed evidence leaves these points open:

• No comprehensive list of holding institutions for Morris design drawings appears in the records, and no figure is given for the V&A's total holdings of them.
• The records do not describe Morris's own drawing materials or working method for his designs; the V&A identifies the portiere drawing as pencil and watercolour on paper, but no general account of his practice is given.
• The V&A record for O1108735 gives no place of production and no provenance or acquisition history, and does not state whether the design was ever executed as an embroidery or by whom.
• The inscription details for O586570 are incomplete in the record reviewed.
• He is not quoted here on drawing as such. The V&A records that Morris called weaving 'the noblest of all the weaving arts' and first set up a tapestry loom in 1877.

Similarly, the description of the indigo discharge method behind 'Strawberry Thief', a furnishing fabric of indigo-discharged and block-printed cotton which the V&A dates to 1883, is cut short in the record reviewed, so the full account of Morris's adoption of the technique is missing here. The V&A states Morris based the pattern and name on thrushes which frequently stole strawberries in the kitchen garden of Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, and describes the design as one of his best-known and a firm favourite with clients despite being one of the most expensive printed furnishings available from Morris & Co.

Why it matters for Morris's work

Design drawings are the point where a Morris pattern becomes visible as a decision rather than a finished product. The two drawings in the reviewed record, both held by the V&A, are an original design for embroidery by William Morris of about 1875 (O1108735) and a traced embroidery design attributed to May Morris, executed in red ink and pounced for transfer (O586570).

The 1870s dates in the records give that context. In 1875 Morris began working with Thomas Wardle, owner of a dyeing works in Leek, Staffordshire, keen to re-establish the use of natural dyes. 'Marigold' (1875) is likely the first textile printed by Wardle, a dense pattern Morris also used for wallpaper. 'Tulip and Rose', the first dateable design by Morris for a woven furnishing textile, was registered in 1876, and 'Peacock and Dragon' is an imposing yet popular design from 1878. Morris studied early woven textiles in the collections of the South Kensington Museum, later the V&A, and many of his designs were inspired by 16th- and 17th-century Italian silks.

The wider lesson of this page is methodological. Where a drawing survives and is catalogued, an attribution can be checked against a museum record. Where it does not, claims about how Morris designed should be treated with care. That is the standard applied throughout our guide to Morris textiles, which covers the printed, woven and embroidered work the drawings fed into.