In Roman mythology, Pomona was the goddess of fruit trees and orchards. Her name comes from the Latin word pomum, meaning fruit. Her story was told by the Latin poet Ovid in the Metamorphoses, in which she was pursued by the god Vertumnus, and the two lovers were popular subjects in painting and the decorative arts, including tapestry, in the 16th century and later.
William Morris considered tapestry “the noblest of the weaving arts”, and his firm of Morris & Co produced exceptional examples, with scenes of Arthurian legend, medieval romance, and mythology, like this piece. The account book of the artist Edward Burne-Jones shows that he was paid £25 by Morris & Co in 1882 for the figure of Pomona, his first design specifically for tapestry. The design was woven in several versions, with alternative backgrounds to the figure, and to different scales. In this version the flowers and fruit, including the branch of apples Pomona is holding, were designed by John Henry Dearle.
Physical description
Tapestry panel of hand-woven wool and silk on a cotton warp. Pomona is shown in layers of costume with various leaf motifs cradling several apples in her gathered skirt. Detailed plants fill the background.
Pitch 14 warp threads to the inch. Pomona, Roman goddess of fruit and trees shown as a Maiden standing amongst various flowers and fruits holding an orange branch in her left hand and cradling eight apples in her skirt with the other. She is dressed in three layered robes and the skirt of the overdress is hitched up to show the two lower layers. The under-robe is depicted with a representation of gold and white patterned damask, the middlerobe of blue with a decoration of gold leaves and an overdress of pink gathered by a high sash and showing a decoration of laurel leaves at the neckline. She has a transparent scarf over her left arm. The background foliage is in the 'millefleur' tradition with strawberries, carnations, dog violets, harebells and narcissi amongst the plants illustrated in numerous shades of blue, yellow, red and green with white details. The border, which measures 3.75 inches at the side, 4 inches at the top and bottom, is composed of a stylised twisted acanthus motif in beige on brown imitating a gilded wooden picture frame.
Place of Origin
Merton, England (made)
Date
ca. 1900 (made)
Artist/maker
Burne-Jones, Edward Coley (Sir), born 1833 - died 1898 (designer)
John Henry Dearle, born 1860 - died 1932 (designer)
Merton Abbey Workshop (manufacturer)
Morris & Co. (weaver)
Materials and Techniques
Tapestry woven in wool and silk on a cotton warp
Dimensions
Height: 168.9 cm, Width: 109.2 cm, Height: 66.5 in, Width: 37.25 in
Object history note
One of a pair of designs drawn for tapestry by Burne-Jones. It is one of six versions from the original design.
Descriptive line
Tapestry panel 'Pomona', tapestry-woven in wool and silk, designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and John Henry Dearle, made by Morris & Company, Merton, England, ca. 1900
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Baker, Malcolm and Richardson, Brenda, eds. A Grand Design : The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: V&A Publications, 1997. 431 p., ill. ISBN 1851773088.
William Morris (English, 1834-1896) is undoubtedly among the most beloved and internationally influential of all English designers. Ironically, Morris's influence derives more from his power and energy as a teacher, leader, and propagandist than as an artist. Morris first entered a partnership business in 1861 with designer Ford Madox Brown, painter Edward Burne-Jones, artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and architect and designer Philip Webb; he took sole control of the firm in 1875, when it became Morris & Co. Morris continued to collaborate with other artists and designers, executing many ambitious decorative schemes throughout England (including the exquisite Green Dining Room at the South Kensington Museum in 1866). Morris personally designed only a few figure pieces, for the most part confining his design work to layouts and backgrounds.
In 1881 Morris founded a print works at Merton Abbey, and from that date he worked seriously on the design and technique of textiles, including chintzes, carpets, tapestries, embroidery kits, and silk and wool fabrics. Burne-Jones was active at Merton Abbey, designing most of the figures used in tapestries woven by Morris & Co., including Pomona. Dearle, Morris's chief assistant for many years, increasingly took over his mentor's role at Morris & Co., and it was Dearle who designed the luxuriant background foliage and fruits of this and other major pieces. In his later years, Morris himself turned increasingly to fine book design and production (cat. 161), setting up his own press, the Kelmscott Press, in 1891, in which Burne-Jones was also an active design partner. Burne-Jones had first met Morris in 1855 when they were at Oxford; together they started a magazine, and at the same time Burne-Jones took up painting studies with Rossetti. From this youthful beginning, Burne-Jones and Morris forged a working partnership that endured for the remainder of their lives.
Few objects associated with Morris were acquired by the V&A during the nineteenth century, even from the 1870s until the artist's death, when he was actively using the collections of the Museum for his own inspiration and edification, and at the same time advising curators on the acquisition of objects, a role he took on informally, and at times officially. His advice was confined exclusively to what the officers of the Museum
classed as "early" artefacts - medieval tapestries, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Oriental carpets, and woven silks from both the East and the chief Mediterranean centres of production. He was never asked to comment on the acquisition of contemporary work nor, as far as records can be traced, did Morris ever volunteer such information. His association with the Museum was one of mutual respect and benefit, and he was one of its greatest supporters as well as most informed critics. One of his last public acts was a series of letters to the press vehemently opposing the removal of medieval tapestries (many of which he had helped the Museum to acquire) from their important central display area near the main entrance on the ground floor of the Museum to make way for a permanent exhibition of plaster casts.
Morris believed tapestry to be the most refined and worthwhile of crafts, "so deep, rich and varied, as to be unattainable by anything else other than the hand of a good painter in a finished picture." In 1893 Morris gave the Museum a personal gift of a miniature tapestry loom on which apprentices were taught the craft at Merton Abbey, clear indication of his view of the importance of the Museum's teaching role at this time.
Lit. Parry, 1983, p. 108; Parry, 1996, p. 29, cat. M126
LINDA PARRY/ BRENDA RICHARDSON
Exhibition History
Precious: Objects and Changing Values (The Millennium Galleries, Sheffield 02/04/2001-24/06/2001)
The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 (Musée d'Orsay 13/09/2011-15/01/2012)
The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 (Victoria and Albert Museum 02/04/2011-17/07/2011)
A Grand Design - The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum 12/10/1999-16/01/2000)
Materials
Cotton fibre; Wool (hair); Silk (fiber)
Subjects depicted
Fruit; Apples; Strawberries; Pomona
Categories
Textiles; Tapestry; Wall coverings
Collection code
T&F
