Lily & Pomegranate, Tile

Great accent piece. Decorate your kitchen, bathroom or any other room with an authentic design: The vertical symmetry of this pattern is indicative of the increasing formality of Morris’s designs in the 1880s, a period when he moved away from dense layering of patterns and instead created depth through a background of small dots. Morris enjoyed painting these dots in his designs. When a friend asked him why he did not hand over such mechanical work to an assistant, Morris replied “After taking all the trouble to draw it, do you think I’d be such a fool as not to do the dots?” This full-size design was used by the block cutter and printer in order to manufacture the wallpaper. Functional drawings such as this, made to transform a design into an object in a different media are referred to as “cartoons”.

A pioneer of the Arts & Crafts Movement, William Morris (1834–1896) is one of the most influential designers of all time. Morris turned the tide of Victorian England against an increasingly industrialized manufacturing process towards a rediscovered respect for the skill of the maker. Morris’s whole approach still resonates today, and his designs are popular and much admired.