Honeysuckle (Early 20th century): Art, History and Details

Honeysuckle (Early 20th century) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is William Morris (British, 1834–1896).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

William Morris’s daughter May called Honeysuckle “the most truly Morrisian in character of all his pattern-making . . . the most mysterious and poetic—the very symbol of a garden tangle.” Like many Morris textiles from this period, Honeysuckle has a mirrored pattern. At 29 3/4 inches high and 34 3/4 inches wide, this repeat was unusually broad, spanning almost the entire width of the loom. Morris believed that large patterns were more restful to the eye than small patterns, even when used to decorate modestly sized rooms. Designs from this period are a testament to the delight he took in his garden at Kelmscott Manor; he favored the charm of native English flowers above exotic specimens.

Object facts

• Title: Honeysuckle
• Date: Early 20th century
• Creator attribution: William Morris (British, 1834–1896)
• Culture: England, Early 20th century
• Type: Textile
• Technique: plain weave linen, printed
• Dimensions: Overall: 87 x 90.5 cm (34 1/4 x 35 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1937.697

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Henry Chisholm

Further reading listed by the museum

• Parry, Linda. William Morris Textiles. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983.
• Korkow, Cory. "Textiles." IN William Morris: Designing an Earthly Paradise. Cory Korkow and Victoria Hepburn, 8-23. Cleveland, Ohio : Cleveland Museum of Art, 2017.
• Korkow, Cory. "Designing an Earthly Paradise: Enter the richly elegant world of William Morris.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 57, no. 6 (November/December 2017): 5-7.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.