Details
A Morris and Company two tile panel
on Dutch tin-glaze blanks, painted in shades of blue with a Minstrel figure playing a portative organ, before a laurel bush unmarked (firing crack, minor chips to extremities) -- 15.5cm. square
See illustration
on Dutch tin-glaze blanks, painted in shades of blue with a Minstrel figure playing a portative organ, before a laurel bush unmarked (firing crack, minor chips to extremities) -- 15.5cm. square
See illustration
Further details
By about 1865 William Morris had designed twelve Minstrel angels for schemes of decoration. In 1866 six figures were used for the tiled reredos at Findon church in Sussex and six were painted on the wooden organ case at Beddington church in Surrey. Over several decades the designs were re-used many times for stained-glass in numerous churches. During the early 1870's Charles Fairfax Murray, a protege of Burne-Jones and an assistant at Morris, Marshall Faulkner & Company, adapted at least seven of these designs (omitting the angels' wings) for pairs of six-inch tiles. Their earliest recorded execution in this form was as blue monochrome tiles for the music shop of Novello & Company in c1872. Some of the figures were repeated in blue and in polychrome during the 1870's and 1880's and finally in a deeper inky blue possibly after 1900.
Christie's would like to thank Richard and Hilary Myers, whose monograph on Morris and Company Tiles will be issued by Richard Dennis Publications, Spring 1996.
Christie's would like to thank Richard and Hilary Myers, whose monograph on Morris and Company Tiles will be issued by Richard Dennis Publications, Spring 1996.