Cray
1884 · Block-printed cotton · Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
📦 Free shipping on every order, arriving in 4–9 business days with production included. Express ($14.90) at checkout arrives in 4–6 business days.
About this work
- Artist
- William Morris (1834–1896)
- Year
- 1884
- Medium
- Block-printed cotton
- Original size
- 95 × 37 cm (piece a)
- Collection
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
- Movement
- Arts and Crafts
Big pink, crimson and yellow flowers suggesting tree peonies and lotus hang from curving pale stems with green and cream leaves, over a dark blue-green ground filled with a fine pattern of scrolling stems and tiny flowers. Cray was designed by William Morris in 1884 and named after the River Cray, one of a series of patterns from these years named after tributaries of the Thames and other rivers. Its large, complex repeat needed 34 printing blocks, more than any other Morris design, making it his most expensive block-printed fabric. It was printed at Merton Abbey. The Cooper Hewitt catalogues this tall, narrow piece simply as a textile; it carries the firm's registration mark.
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 and crimson blooms on dark blue-green make a bold, colourful focal piece for a living room, dining room or hallway. Pair it with Compton, another large-flowered dark-ground cotton, at 16×24 in black.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Arts and Crafts pattern
- Era
- 19th century (1884)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Mood
- decorative, classic
- Rooms
- living room, 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.
