Snakeshead
1876 · Printed plain-weave cotton · The Cleveland Museum of Art
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About this work
- Artist
- William Morris (1834–1896)
- Year
- 1876
- Medium
- Printed plain-weave cotton
- Original size
- 85.1 × 100.3 cm
- Collection
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Movement
- Arts and Crafts
Small red flower heads, cream leaf sprays and blue-grey scrolls repeat in tight mirrored rows on a dark blue ground, an unusually small-scale pattern for Morris. William Morris designed Snakeshead in 1876, and it was printed for him by Thomas Wardle at his works in Leek, Staffordshire. The Cleveland Museum of Art notes that its strong red-and-dark palette recalls the Indian silks then fashionable in Britain, colours that stayed in favour only briefly before paler hues returned. The flower itself is English: the snakeshead fritillary, a wildflower Morris remembered growing in the meadows near Oxford and one of his favourites. This early twentieth-century printing on plain-weave cotton is in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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
Red fritillaries and cream sprays in a tight repeat on dark blue give a rich, textile-like wall for a study, dining room or library. Pair it with Blackthorn at 24×36 in black.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Arts and Crafts pattern
- Era
- 19th century (1876)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Mood
- decorative, classic
- Rooms
- dining room, study or library
Size. We'd hang this one at 24×36. Prints at 12×18, 16×24, 24×36 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway; 24×36 as the statement piece above a sofa or bed.
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.
