DESIGNED BY WILLIAM MORRIS, WOVEN BY MORRIS & CO., CIRCA 1890

In seeking intellectual escape from the age of mass production, design reformers of the nineteenth century often looked eastwards for inspiration. Many were particularly struck by Persian carpets from the classical age of Safavid weaving, seeing in the skill of their manufacture and the elegance of their design a cure for this modern malaise. Observing the declining quality of carpets woven in nineteenth-century Iran and the Ottoman Empire, a result of the introduction of the new manufacturing methods which they so deplored, Morris and his contemporaries hoped to revive the art of carpet weaving.

Morris’ starting point was the close observation of classical carpets. His friend F.S. Ellis remembered in 1902 that he had ‘set himself to study not only the scheme of design and colour, but also the method of manufacture’ (M. Haslam, Arts and Crafts Carpets, London, 1991, p. 53). He encouraged the South Kensington Museum (today the Victoria and Albert Museum) to purchase the ‘Ardabil’ and ‘Chelsea’ carpets, and was instrumental in raising the funds. He was also a collector himself: a large ‘vase’ carpet hung in the dining room in Kelmscott House, and is today in the Victoria and Albert Museum (719-1897). The large flowerheads and interwoven multi-plane lattice on the present lot may have been inspired by this iconic seventeenth-century design. The close observation of Persian prototypes, with designs incorporating a central medallion, is typical of William Morris’ own work rather than that of his associates (L. Parry, ‘William Morris Hammersmith Carpets’, HALI 28, p. 16).

‘Hammersmith’ carpets – as the name suggests – were originally woven in Morris’ Georgian townhouse in the borough of Hammersmith. Production moved to Merton Abbey in Surrey in 1882, where the greater space allowed Morris & Co. weavers to attempt designs on a larger scale. The design of the present lot resembles that of the ‘Holland Park’ carpet, which was woven in 1883 for the drawing room of Alexander Ionides, a third-generation Greek merchant who lived in Kensington (Haslam, op cit., p. 74). Similar carpets to the present lot were produced on a commission basis: potential clients of Morris & Co. would select a field pattern based on a former commission, which they could combine with a border pattern and colour scheme of their choice. A carpet with a similar field and border commissioned by Mrs. Lucius Gubbins of Eastbourne was sold by Lyon and Turnbull, London, 19 April 2005, lot 386.