Compton
1896 · Printed cotton · Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
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About this work
- Artist
- John Henry Dearle (1860–1932)
- Year
- 1896
- Medium
- Printed cotton
- Original size
- 85.1 × 77.2 cm (piece a)
- Collection
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
- Movement
- Arts and Crafts
Large pink and white flowers, coral acanthus leaves, a blue central bloom and cream tulips spread across a near-black ground thick with olive and sage foliage. Compton was commissioned by Laurence Hodson for his house, Compton Hall, outside Wolverhampton, which Morris's firm redecorated in 1895–96, and it was registered as both a wallpaper and a printed cotton on 27 February 1896, the same blocks serving paper and fabric. For many years it was described, including by May Morris, as her father's last design; the textile historian Linda Parry later showed that it was by John Henry Dearle. The flowers are drawn at a scale suited to a large room. This printed cotton, carrying the firm's registration mark, is in the Cooper Hewitt.
This print fills the sheet edge to edge with the pattern, cropped from a high-resolution museum scan of the original, so it reads like a panel of the wallpaper or fabric. The exhibition poster shows the whole sample. The design is in the public domain.
Where it works
Pink, coral and cream flowers on near-black make a dramatic, moody wall for a dining room, bedroom or dark-painted hallway. Pair it with Cray for two big-bloom prints at 16×24 in black.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Arts and Crafts pattern
- Era
- 19th century (1896)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Mood
- decorative, classic
- Rooms
- bedroom, dining room, hallway or entryway
Size. We'd hang this one at 16×24. Prints at 12×18, 16×24 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway.
Framing. Printed edge to edge: a slim black or natural wood frame right to the pattern, or let the canvas wrap do the framing. Also available gallery-wrapped on canvas, ready to hang with no frame.
Pairing. Hangs alone or as a matched pair; three or more prints are 10% off.
