Works in Progress

Many artists use drawing as a means of thinking through ideas. The brain, eye and hand work together to produce form through a process of trial and error on paper.

Burne-Jones’s fluent sketches suggest that drawing was a natural way for him to develop the images of his mind’s eye.

These quickly executed figures likely depict the Hesperides, the nymphs of evening in Greek mythology.

Invenio, the Latin root of the word ‘invention’, means to find or discover, a reference to the Renaissance belief that artists do not create ideas from nowhere, but rather reveal their physical form.

In this rough chalk study, the figure of a woman seems to emerge from the page, gradually brought to life through the artist’s skill.

Burne-Jones made countless studies of human figures and drapery which he translated into paintings, embroidery, stained glass and tapestry.

The Earthly Paradise was a volume of poems by William Morris that retold stories from Norse and Classical mythology.

Burne-Jones and Morris collaborated on a proposed set of 500 illustrations, designed by Burne-Jones and printed from woodblocks cut by Morris.

The movement in this pencil sketch shows Burne-Jones’s ability to design clearly and swiftly.

His wife Georgiana remembered that “he made the designs without hesitation… which came out upon the paper so quickly that it seemed as if they must always have been there, and his hand was only removing a veil”.

This design relates to stained glass by Burne-Jones in the V&A’s Green Dining Room.

This careful study is a preparatory drawing for The Rose Bower, one of four large paintings in the Briar Rose series that told the story of Sleeping Beauty.

The paintings caused a sensation when they were first unveiled in 1890, with thousands of people queuing to see them.

Burne-Jones made numerous studies for all his paintings, working out in pencil every detail that would then be translated into a different medium.

This chalk study depicts the medieval Scottish magician and astronomer Michael Scott placing a ring on the finger of a young girl.

The features of the seated central woman are those of Jane Morris, with whom Rossetti was having an affair.

Rossetti received commissions for both watercolour and oil depictions of this story but neither were completed, meaning that this preliminary design is the most complete version known to exist.

The artisanal, craft-based style of Burne-Jones’s paintings has always provoked mixed reviews, with criticism of its ‘decorative’ rather than artistic qualities.

This classical design is influenced by the Parthenon friezes which Burne-Jones had sketched in the British Museum.

While watercolour had traditionally been a transparent and fluid medium, Burne-Jones built up thick layers which he then scraped away to create depth and texture.

Design drawings can help us understand how designers build up motifs to form patterns.

The coloured section of this design by Morris’s former apprentice John Henry Dearle highlights the strong diagonal repeats favoured by Morris to create structure and movement.

This design is for a printed cotton which was to be created using woodblocks. To the right of the image there is an instruction to the blockmaker.

In reaction to the hyper-realistic three-dimensional designs popular in the nineteenth century, Morris created patterns from multiple layers of flat, abstracted shapes.

Avon may have been one of Dearle’s first designs for printed cotton. He went on to become Morris & Co.’s chief designer.

The green leaves in the foreground of this design rest on large white flowers, which in turn cover a layer of smaller white flowers against a dark blue background.

The vertical symmetry often used in Morris’s patterns is clear in this design where only the right half has been shaded. The manufacturer would have understood how to create the whole design from a single coloured part.

This printed velveteen —a heavy, luxurious textured cotton fabric that became fashionable for furnishing in the 1880s— was produced in red, blue and yellow colourways.

This is the only repeating pattern designed as a collaboration between Morris and Burne-Jones.

Burne-Jones’s figures were incorporated into Morris's designs of scrolling foliage and flower-heads.

Although the fabric was never woven, both Morris and Burne-Jones made use of the design for other works.
The background pattern became Morris’s Wreath wallpaper and the mermaid figures were adapted by Burne-Jones for both gesso panels and paintings in the 1880s.

Morris believed that a successful design had to account for manufacturing processes. His designs are specific and not intended to be transferred across media. However, he did occasionally use the same pattern for different products.

The grid supporting this design shows it was intended to be woven on a loom.

A different design for the same pattern in printed cotton is in the collection of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

The scale of design drawings provides a clue to their purpose.

This full-size drawing for an embroidered frieze was created by the architect-designer Philip Webb as a hands-on guide for the embroiderers who would produce the piece.

Patterns were generally transferred to canvas through the prick and pounce method, whereby dark powder was rubbed through small holes.

Morris and his associates relied on skilled craftswomen to execute their embroidery designs.

Webb’s peacock design was incorporated into a larger hanging that was displayed at an exhibition of work by the Royal School of Needlework in Philadelphia in 1876.

The display was organised by Bessie Burden, Morris’s sister-in-law and a member of the School.

The hanging was praised by Harper’s Bazaar as “equivalent in conception to many of the best masters of medieval decorative arts”.

Morris often reused design elements to create new patterns.

Powdered is one of several designs featuring willow foliage, a favourite motif that here creates depth and movement as a backdrop to the informal arrangement of meadow flowers.

The deep creases in this drawing show that it has been folded, perhaps when passed between
Morris & Co. and the wallpaper printer.

The fluency of Morris’s design drawings is likely a reflection of his working process. He believed that a designer must always see the design in their mind’s eye before committing to paper.

“Don’t begin by slobbering and messing about in the hope that something may come out of it. You must see it before you can draw it, whether the design be of your own invention or of nature’s”

Morris's original drawing was transferred onto a pearwood surface using tracing paper and carved by Barrett's carvers.

Each block was cut to match a different colour of the design and had to register correctly to ensure the pattern was printed accurately.

Small pins were inserted in the edge of the block which left tiny dots of colour when printed. This allowed the printer to line the blocks up in the right place.

At Morris’s factory in Merton Abbey the printer pressed the printing block into a dye-pad and then positioned it on the fabric.

The block was then tapped with a mall (a led weighted mallet) to ensure an even impression on the cloth. The printer then lifted the block, applied more colour and repeated the process down the whole length of the fabric.

When the first colour had dried, the second colour was applied.

Designers communicate through drawings.

This page has been extensively annotated in another hand — perhaps that of George Wardle, Morris & Co's. business manager.

The pattern is apparently by Morris
himself (whose own annotations are in pencil).

This design is similar to painted panelling at St James's Palace and was probably also intended for a painted ceiling.

This design is for one of six tile panels commissioned by the banker Edward Baring for his bathroom at Membland Hall, north of Plymouth.

In contrast with Morris's wallpaper designs of the same period, this pattern is less dense, with larger motifs and more free space.

The repeat design at the edges shows that the panels were intended to be set close together so that the pattern could
progress horizontally.

Morris and De Morgan collaborated closely in the design and manufacture of ceramics. William De Morgan had set up his pottery in Chelsea in 1872.

The Membland Hall commission, with each panel comprising 66 tiles, was the largest scheme he attempted. Morris's design was painted on plain tiles known as ‘blanks’, supplied by the Architectural Pottery Company, Poole, Dorset.

The thick black lines in Morris’s designs for stained glass reveal the technique he used to capture the formal qualities of medieval glass.

Rather than painting on clear glass, as had been the practice in the 18th century, Morris & Co. used pot glass (coloured all the way through), separated by lead to create deep, jewel-like colours.

Burne-Jones commented: “The leads are part of the beauty of the work, the more of them, the deeper the colour.”

This study for an oil painting shows the subject of Rossetti’s poem "The Blessed Damozel", a young woman who has died and waits for her lover to join her in heaven.

While Rossetti designed furniture
stained glass for Morris & Co., he is best known as a painter.

As a design for a painting, this study is a functional object, yet many viewers would also consider it an artwork in its own right.

Burne-Jones used variations on this design for tapestry, embroidery and an oil painting, which was directly based on this drawing.

This scene is one of a series based on Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose. In this image, the winged figure of Love leads the Pilgrim to the Rose, personified as a beautiful woman within a rose bush.

Although the sketchy outlines and white chalk are characteristic of a working drawing, they also add to the mysterious, dreamlike quality of the piece.

Originally a design for the east window of St. Martin's Church, Brampton, Cumbria, Burne-Jones used coloured chalks to transform this design into a highly finished drawing.

It has been lined onto canvas and mounted around a stretcher in a similar way to an oil painting, indicating the further blurring of boundaries between design and artwork.

The stylised tree and sinuous curves of this drawing have been seen as a precursor of Art Nouveau.