WILLIAM MORRIS, CIRCA 1880

William Morris was the leading proponent of the Arts and Crafts movement in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the mid 1870s Morris became interested in carpets, and he began to collect Persian rugs. In 1878, he established his own carpet weaving workshop, which used traditional methods and materials, in the coach house of Kelmscott House, his home in Hammersmith. In 1881, the workshop moved to a larger space in Merton Abbey, where this carpet was woven. The field design of this carpet is identical to the Rounton Grange carpet designed by Morris for Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell and woven at Merton Abbey in 1881-82.