'Artichoke' embroidered wall hanging

This wall hanging is one panel of a set of three designed and made for the drawing room of Smeaton Manor, Northallerton, North Yorkshire. The panels are embroidered in wool on linen and features a pattern of alternating rows of clumps of stylised flowers, large blue artichoke heads and blue flower-heads against a background arabesque pattern of stems, leaves and small flowers.

The panels were worked by Mrs Ada Phoebe Godman, who lived at Smeaton Manor. She was the daughter of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, a wealthy customer of Morris & Co.. Godman commissioned William Morris to produce the design and her diary records its arrival on 31 August 1877. A surviving drawing shows her still working on the embroideries in 1900. The design was not exclusive and a pair of hangings from the same design were worked in silks by Mrs Margaret Beale and her daughters for their country home, Standen, East Sussex. Both Smeaton Manor and Standen were houses designed by Philip Webb.

The two other panels from the Smeaton Manor set are in the collections of the Fitzwilliam and the V&A and a fourth, designed for a doorway, was sold at auction September 2018.