Illustration: May Morris. Battye embroidered tapestry (detail), 1900.
May Morris is probably the closest William Morris ever had to a successor, even though she was heavily marginalised by the scale and popularity of her father. May Morris was a firm believer in her father, his mission and the aims of the English Arts & Crafts movement. May was an early convert to the craft and skill of embroidery and spent most of her life designing, publicising, and expanding the appeal and versatility of embroidery.
To this extent, she was involved in the scaling up of embroidery from small and often intimate pieces that were used as parts of costume or embellishment for small-scale textile accessories, to that of full-scale hangings and tapestries. It is sometimes confusing to call large embroidery pieces 'tapestries', and although they were not constructed in the same way as a conventional tapestry, i.e. stitched rather than woven, there was a convention that enabled large-scale embroideries to be classed as tapestries. Probably the most famous case of an embroidery being popularly classed as a tapestry is that of the Bayeux tapestry celebrating the conquest of the English by William the Conqueror and his Norman army. Interestingly, a replica of this particular tapestry was produced by the English in 1886 and had been initiated by Elizabeth Wardle the wife of Thomas Wardle a one time close associate of William Morris.
Illustration: Bayeux embroidered tapestry (detail), 1070s.
The pre and medieval provenance of embroidered tapestries such as the Bayeux tapestry would have appealed to the sensibilities of Morris and indeed of his daughter May. Although the English Arts & Crafts movement dealt mainly with the heritage of English and European medieval decorative arts, it would not have been immune to such classic early textile pieces as the Bayeux. Many would have both supported and been intrigued by the reconstruction in the 1880s under the tutelage of Elizabeth Wardle and her army of thirty five embroiderers.
The embroidered tapestry shown in this article is a segment of one produced by May Morris in 1900 and was commissioned by the Battye family, hence the name and coat of arms. It is a much more conventionally themed medieval piece, but is not a mere copy of William Morris. The composition, style, and tone seem to have a slightly lighter touch than we are used to with Morris tapestry and embroidery work. May seems to have ordered her design work to concentrate on the overall decorative effect rather than that of the exacting details of nature that was so much part of her father's style. This is particularly noticeable when looking at the leaves and fruit in the forefront of the composition and the movement of the trees, which almost seem to be walking, rather than swaying. Although the piece is superficially medieval in tone, it has none of the gravity of the Arts & Crafts movement of the 1880s and 1890s, but instead pays more attention to the playfulness of much of the decorative work that was to appear later in the twentieth century. A full illustration of the Battye embroidered tapestry can be seen here.
Illustration: May Morris, 1909.
This important piece of large-scale embroidery work is often lost next to the work and character of William Morris. May Morris was a worthy successor to her father and perhaps in time the breadth and scale of her own decorative ideas and work will be seen as separate and independent from that of her father.
The English copy of the Bayeux tapestry can be seen at Reading Museum.
Further reading links:
Jane and May Morris: A Biographical Story, 1839-1938
Reading Museum - Bayeux tapestry
Decorative Needlework - May Morris (1893)
On Poetry, Painting, and Politics: The Letters of May Morris and John Quinn
The Collected Works of William Morris: With Introductions by His Daughter May Morris ...
William Morris
Textiles by William Morris and Morris & Co., 1861-1940
The Gardens of William Morris
William Morris
William Morris on Art and Socialism
William Morris By Himself; Designs and Writings
