William Morris Registered 1883 Textile Yardage, Provenance

This is the “Tudor Rose” pattern by William Morris. 

One of the most respected books about William Morris is by Linda Parry. "William Morris" was published to coincide with the exhibition "William Morris 1834-1896" at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. 

Parry describes this particular pattern as registered on "8 December 1883, this is only one of the three printed textile patterns in which Morris depicted birds. (see also "Strawberry Thief, cat. no 60, and "Bird of Anemone"). As he claimed in a letter to Thomas Wardle of 25 March 1877 that he was studying birds to put in his next design it is probable that he alone was responsible for these (designs)." 

Parry adds, "Morris insisted on printing this complex design by the indigo-discharge process, despite this involving the bleaching and clearing of most of the white ground."  

The colors are vivid. The fabric is strong. There are no stains, holes or problems of any kind. This exquisite yardage has been carefully stored away for decades and has never been on the open market prior to now. 

This textile comes from the estate of Peter Hansen, designer to Gustav Stickley. 

Indeed, authentic, this large textile sample is in a Morris pattern called “Tudor Rose” and was registered by Morris in 1883, only three years before his death. Please refer to the photographs, including the reference for the design sketch of this pattern, as found in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 

This textile comes to us from the direct descendant of the Peter Hansen estate. Peter Hansen was the furniture designer for Gustav Stickley. His wife, Ruth, was an artist and also worked as a draftsman for Stickley. 

The provenance is that the samples were first gathered by Peter and his wife when they decorated their home in upstate New York. This was during the time when they worked for Stickley, sometime around 1905. 

The remainder of the Morris collection may be seen online at the Cranbrook Art Museum, located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. That particular donation consisted of the many rare William Morris wallpaper samples and all came from this very same estate. The items listed here on The Gilded Griffin are the textiles that were not donated to the Museum, but items that remained in Mrs. Hansen’s possession until her passing. The provenance and records come from the files of the two local ASA appraisers who handled Mrs. Hansen's estate. 

The Morris wallpaper samples are discussed in the Cranbrook Art Museum blog, dated October 3, 2014. The author of the entry is Shelley Selim, 2013-2015 Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow. She writes: 

“Cranbrook Art Museum holds seventy-two wallpaper samples in its collection, which were donated by Mrs. Olive Hansen in 1991. Peter Heinrich Hansen, Mrs. Hansen’s father-in-law, was a German immigrant who in 1904 was hired as a designer-draftsman by none other than Gustav Stickley, one of the American Craftsman style’s greatest furniture makers (and like Morris, an ardent socialist). When Hansen and his wife, Ruth, who herself worked for Stickley as an architectural draftsman, were redecorating their home in upstate New York, they ordered wallpaper samples of every pattern made by Morris & Company–the design firm founded by William Morris–and never threw them away. 

You can read more about the design, implementation, and social context of William Morris’s wallpapers on the Victoria and Albert Museum website. And for more on Morris’s influence on George Booth and the foundation of Cranbrook, you can check out this great gallery guide written by a former Art Museum fellow, which I’ve scanned and uploaded here.” 

This particular “Rose” textile has the handwritten note attached, written in the hand of Mrs. Olive Hansen. Please refer to the photograph attached. 

Another, similar piece of this yardage is in the NYC MOMA collection…while yet another is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. On occasion, early William Morris yardage and samples such as these come to auction at such fine auction houses such as Christie's or Bonhams. 

These are obviously historic and important textiles and they are destined for discerning private or museum collections. 

The actual printing date is unknown, but providence points to pre-1905. The selvage has the Reg Morris & Company logo written on it. 

There are four William Morris textiles from the Hansen estate being offered by The Gilded Griffin. This particular textile appears to be the oldest of the four and the printing date may even be 19th century, whereas the other samples appear to be pre-1918. 

The textile measures 54 inches or 137.16 cm in length. It is 38.5 inches or 97.79 cm wide. There is simply nothing like the colors and brilliance in this fine William Morris textile.