Flowerpot Fire Screen

Description

The two fire screens in the collection [2018.845 and 2018.846] illustrate the variety of ways in which one could purchase objects from Morris & Co. The Flowerpot Fire Screen was likely embroidered, assembled, and sold completed as seen here. May Morris herself stitched several versions of the Flowerpot panel. The Honeysuckle design may have been a kit that was sold for amateurs to embroider themselves, as the stitching is less precise. Both of these designs could also be made into cushions, and they continued to be sold as kits decades after they were introduced.

Provenance

Haslam & Whiteway, London, by 2007; sold to Crab Tree Farm Foundation, Lake Bluff, IL, 6 Sept. 2007 [Crab Tree Farm Foundation cataloging records, copy in curatorial files]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018.

Flowerpot Fire Screen

Morris & Co.

Design early 1880s

Accession Number

249141

Medium

Wood, cotton or linen ground, silk floss

Dimensions

101.6 × 59.7 × 32.4 cm (40 × 23 1/2 × 12 3/4 in.)

Classification

embroidery

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Crab Tree Farm Foundation