Lot Essay
Morris & Co. sold two different types of carpet: machine-woven carpets which Morris described as 'make-shifts for cheapness' sake', although his designs for them showed no lack of commitment, and hand-knotted 'Hammersmith' carpets which he regarded as individual works of art, comparable in status to the firm's embroidered hangings and tapestries. The present example, a fine specimen of the superior 'Hammersmith' type, dates from about 1890, six years before Morris's death, and is one of three identical carpets woven for the firm's Australian clients, Robert and Joanna Barr-Smith. It was designed by John Henry Dearle (1860-1932), who had entered Morris's employment in 1878 as an assistant in his Oxford Street showroom and quickly became a trusted lieutenant in all the main areas of the firm's activity, designing printed textiles, wallpapers, tapestries and stained glass, as well as carpets. It is not always easy to determine which carpets were designed by Morris and which by Dearle, but Dearle's tend to be more traditional and less naturalistic than Morris's, depending for their effect on formal patterns much influenced by Persian examples. The present carpet is typical in this respect. After about 1890 Dearle became responsible for all the firm's new designs for hand-knotted carpets, leaving Morris free to concentrate on other interests, notably the Kelmscott Press. His masterpiece is the great McCulloch carpet woven about 1900-02 for the London house of the Australian mining magnate George McCulloch (repr. Linda Parry, William Morris Textiles, 1983, p.98).
Morris's hand-knotted carpets were generally woven in the idyllic setting of his Merton Abbey workshops, occupied from 1881, but it has been suggested that the large commission of three identical carpets ordered by the Barr-Smiths was carried out at the Wilton Royal Carpet Factory at Wilton, near Salisbury, in Wlitshire. The oldest carpet factory in Britian, established in 1701, this was responisible for most of the machine-made carpeting sold by Morris & Co., producing work in twenty-four different designs by Morris and Dearle.
Robert and Joanna Barr-Smith were among the biggest clients of the Morris firm from the mid-1880s. Robert, a Scot, had emigrated to Australia in 1854, joining the agricultural firm of Elder & Co. in Adelaide. Two years later he married Joanna Elder, whose family controlled the company, and in 1865 he became a partner, the firm being re-named Elder Smith & Co. By now it had diversified, and the dicovery of minerals at Moonta and Wallaroo brought great wealth in the 1880s. When Thomas Elder, the head of the firm, retired in 1883, Barr-Smith took over.
The family had a series of residences. In 1874 Robert and Joanna bought Torrens Park, a house built in 1860 on the outskirts of Adelaide which they had extensively altered by the London architect Neville Ashbee. From the early 1890s they tended to spend the hot summer months at Auchendarroch, their Italianate villa in the Mount Barker hills about thirty miles from the city. After the earthquake of 1902, they moved to Angas Street, Adelaide. Meanwhile in 1897 Thomas Elder had died, leaving his large Adelaide house, Birksgate, to this nephew Tom Barr-Smith, the eldest son of Robert and Joanna. The Barr-Smiths are believed to have encountered Morris because their daughter, Mabel, went to the same school in England as his daughter, May. All their houses were furnished throughout with Morris & Co. products, either purchased when Joanna was in London or ordered by mail. Money was no object (when Robert Barr-Smith died in 1915 the probate value of his estate was the highest to date in South Australia), and their taste set the style for other fashionable Adelaide houses. It would be interesting to know if there was a link between the Barr-Smiths and the two important Australian clients resident in London whom Morris acquired at this time, George McCulloch and his friend and fellow millionaire William Knox D'Arcy of Stanmore Hall.
Morris's hand-knotted carpets were generally woven in the idyllic setting of his Merton Abbey workshops, occupied from 1881, but it has been suggested that the large commission of three identical carpets ordered by the Barr-Smiths was carried out at the Wilton Royal Carpet Factory at Wilton, near Salisbury, in Wlitshire. The oldest carpet factory in Britian, established in 1701, this was responisible for most of the machine-made carpeting sold by Morris & Co., producing work in twenty-four different designs by Morris and Dearle.
Robert and Joanna Barr-Smith were among the biggest clients of the Morris firm from the mid-1880s. Robert, a Scot, had emigrated to Australia in 1854, joining the agricultural firm of Elder & Co. in Adelaide. Two years later he married Joanna Elder, whose family controlled the company, and in 1865 he became a partner, the firm being re-named Elder Smith & Co. By now it had diversified, and the dicovery of minerals at Moonta and Wallaroo brought great wealth in the 1880s. When Thomas Elder, the head of the firm, retired in 1883, Barr-Smith took over.
The family had a series of residences. In 1874 Robert and Joanna bought Torrens Park, a house built in 1860 on the outskirts of Adelaide which they had extensively altered by the London architect Neville Ashbee. From the early 1890s they tended to spend the hot summer months at Auchendarroch, their Italianate villa in the Mount Barker hills about thirty miles from the city. After the earthquake of 1902, they moved to Angas Street, Adelaide. Meanwhile in 1897 Thomas Elder had died, leaving his large Adelaide house, Birksgate, to this nephew Tom Barr-Smith, the eldest son of Robert and Joanna. The Barr-Smiths are believed to have encountered Morris because their daughter, Mabel, went to the same school in England as his daughter, May. All their houses were furnished throughout with Morris & Co. products, either purchased when Joanna was in London or ordered by mail. Money was no object (when Robert Barr-Smith died in 1915 the probate value of his estate was the highest to date in South Australia), and their taste set the style for other fashionable Adelaide houses. It would be interesting to know if there was a link between the Barr-Smiths and the two important Australian clients resident in London whom Morris acquired at this time, George McCulloch and his friend and fellow millionaire William Knox D'Arcy of Stanmore Hall.