William Morris and Glessner House - Part III

The use of a wide range of products from Morris & Co., selected by Frances Glessner to decorate her new home in 1887, is an essential factor when considering her design aesthetic. Surviving photos of the Glessners’ previous home show no evidence of Morris’s products being used there, despite her awareness and interest in Morris as early as 1883. As such, Morris & Co. became a virtual partner with Richardson – the architecture and interior furnishings complementing and enriching each other to form a unified whole. This was a basic concept that Frances Glessner and H. H. Richardson both read about in Morris’s writings on architecture just a few years before Glessner house came into being.

In this third and final installment of our series on William Morris and Glessner House, we will explore the range of products used throughout the house. There are far too many to explore in a single article; instead, we will look at one example of each of the major categories of items produced by Morris & Co. - wallpapers, textiles, and carpets.

Wallpapers

Perhaps no product line of Morris & Co. is more associated with the name of William Morris to this day than wallpaper. Morris introduced his first designs in the early 1860s, a period in which wallpaper was almost universal in the homes of all who could afford it. Although Morris’s wallpapers were printed using the traditional wood-block process, the designs themselves were far from traditional and marked a gradual shift away from the French realistic papers to those categorized as “reform” papers. At the same time, Morris helped to elevate the status of English wallpapers to one of international prominence, and he directly influenced other designers to the point where the term “Morrisonian” was used to describe all wallpapers created in “his” style.

A total of seven Morris wallpaper designs were used at Glessner house. Upon completion of the house in 1887, both guestrooms as well as the bedrooms of George and Fanny, were all papered with Morris designs. Installation of electrical wiring in 1892 resulted in all the rooms being repapered, with the two guestrooms receiving different Morris designs, in both cases ones that were much lighter in color. At the same time, the Glessners’ bedroom, originally decorated with a non-Morris paper, received its Morris wallpaper. After that, when the rooms were repapered, the same Morris pattern was always reused. The wallpapers were acquired through the Chicago-based decorating firm of John J. McGrath, which began carrying Morris & Co. wallpapers as early as 1876. 

Of particular interest is the Double Bough wallpaper, installed in the corner guestroom after the electrical wiring project was completed. Although several people created wallpaper designs for Morris & Co., this particular pattern is attributed to William Morris himself, and dates to 1890. This date is interesting because the wallpaper would not have been available when Glessner house was completed in 1887 but was available when the repapering was undertaken. This might explain its sudden appearance – Frances Glessner saw the new design, liked it, and found a way to work it into her home. It was used again when the room was repapered in 1916.

In 2010, when the room was being readied for restoration, a large piece of the Double Bough wallpaper was found behind vinyl wallcovering installed in the early 1970s. It was carefully removed from the walls by historic finishes expert Robert Furhoff and preserved. The fragment was of great value as it verified the colorway of the wallpaper. As was the case with most Morris & Co. wallpapers, Double Bough was offered in several colorways, and since the historic photos are all black and white, a surviving fragment is essential to recreate the wallpaper correctly. 

The complete set of carved wood blocks was on hand at the Morris archives in England and were used to print the current paper, installed in 2015. The process was laborious, as the paper must be given time to dry in between the application of each block. For this particular design, 21 blocks were needed; some designs required as many as 30.

Today, four of the five bedrooms feature exact copies of their Morris & Co. wallpapers – Double Bough and Arcadia in the guestrooms, and Poppy and Blossom in the children’s bedrooms.

Textiles

Textiles represented a huge category of products for Morris & Co. including everything from woven woolens and printed cottons used for draperies and upholstery, to embroidered textiles and tapestries. Historic photographs of Glessner house show no less than nine rooms that featured at least one Morris textile, often used for draperies and portieres, but also for upholstered furniture and bed coverings. Fanny’s bedroom, for example, just reopened after an extensive restoration, features different Morris & Co. textiles for the draperies, upholstery, and embroidered bed covering. 

Perhaps the most widely used textile in the house is one that is often overlooked. Known as Utrecht Velvet, the stamped woolen plush fabric appears in historic photos covering chairs in the library and upper hall, and on the davenport sofas in both the library and the schoolroom (after its conversion to a sitting room). Developed in about 1871, it is based on stamped velvets first produced during the 17^th- and 18^th-centuries in the Low Countries. The monochromatic design consisted of a bold, stylized pattern of flowers and foliage, the repeat being 26 inches in diameter.

Unlike many of the Morris & Co. textiles, it was not actually produced by the firm, but was contracted out to a firm that produced woolen goods. It was available in at least fourteen colorways. The surviving example of Utrecht Velvet can be found on the seats of a pair of Chippendale style side chairs in the second-floor hall, attributed to A. H. Davenport & Co. It was produced in a rich red color, although it is believed that a green version of the fabric was used in the library. (Fun fact: The fabric remained popular well after the turn of the 20^th century and was used as a wallcovering for at least one of the first-class cabins on the R.M.S. Titanic).

Reproductions of Morris & Co. textiles can currently be found in the main hall (both levels), library, parlor, and four of the five bedrooms. An original pair of drapery panels in the Cross Twigs design is stored in the archives, the exact location of its use in the house has not been determined.

Carpets

Morris & Co. produced numerous carpet designs through the years which can be divided into two categories – machine-woven and hand-knotted. Although Morris generally eschewed the use of the machine, he started designing an extensive line of machine-woven carpets in 1876; several can be seen in the historic photos of Glessner house. In 2013, one of his earliest and most popular machine-woven carpets, Lily, was reproduced and reinstalled in its original location on the main entry stairs leading up to the main hall from the front door.

It is the hand-knotted Hammersmith rug in the main hall itself that is most worthy of note. Frances Glessner wrote about its selection in a journal entry recording the arrival of architect Charles Coolidge on April 19, 1887:

“Tuesday Mr. Coolidge came. He and John spent the morning at the house and came home late to lunch. We spent the afternoon at Field’s looking over rugs and hangings – we selected for the parlor and hall – Morris rug and hangings for the hall, and Morris silks for the parlor. Mr. C. was enthusiastic over our Morris rug. In the evening we talked furnishings and showed him all the things we have gathered up for the house.”

The hand-knotted carpets were extremely labor intensive to produce, and were therefore very costly, so Coolidge’s enthusiasm over the rug is no surprise. An advertisement in the Chicago Tribune that same year promoted the rug department at Marshall Field & Co., considered one of the best in the country. The advertisement specifically noted that Field’s had an exclusive contract “for the entire West” for the “wonderous Hammersmith rugs designed and made under the personal supervision of William Morris.” 

Morris was an expert on, and collector of, rugs from Persia, Turkey, and China, advising the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria & Albert) on acquisitions, and offering advice to Richardson on a carpet during their meeting in 1882. The carpet produced for the Glessners is very similar to one that Morris designed about 1883 for Swan House, the London home of Wickham Flower, a prominent solicitor. It is based on a typical 17^th-century Persian medallion carpet and features a broad border of stylized palmettes, inspired by 16^th- and 17^th-century Turkish cut velvets, of which Morris would have also been familiar.

The original carpet, which measures nearly 11’ x 15.5’, was donated to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1974 by the Glessners’ granddaughter, Martha Batchelder. A close approximation of the original, assembled from machine made carpeting replicating both the field and border, was installed in the main hall in 2014.

This concludes our three-part series on William Morris and the significant presence of his designs at Glessner House. There is much to see, we hope you will visit soon!

William Morris and Glessner House - Part I

William Morris by George Frederic Watts, 1870 (National Portrait Gallery, London). The Glessners owned a photographic copy of this portrait.

A visit to Glessner House reveals the inseparable connection between the designs of William Morris and of Frances Glessner’s decoration for her new home. It has often been said that the Glessners were a bit ahead of the curve in Chicago in embracing the use of Morris & Co. wallpapers, textiles, and rugs, although such items were gaining favor on the East Coast. There is little surprise here as the Glessners were hardly followers of the popular trends of the day including the reliance on anything of French origin. Instead, they actively studied and developed an aesthetic of their own that is still well reflected in their carefully preserved home.

This leads one to ponder what the average Chicagoan would have known about William Morris in the 1870s and early 1880s. In this first of three articles focusing on Morris, we will look to the Chicago Tribune to see what was written about him, only to discover that the decorative arts was only a small part of a larger dialogue that included Morris as poet and Socialist.

The Defense of Guinevere

One of the first references to Morris appears in a review of new volumes of poetry in the Literature column on May 22, 1875. A reprint of The Defense of Guinevere, and Other Poems had just been released “without alteration from the edition of 1858.” The reviewer noted that “admirers of the noble narrative poems, ‘The Life and Death of Jason,’ and ‘The Earthly Paradise,’ will read with interest the volume of Mr. Morris’ earliest metrical compositions.” The reference to other well-known poems of Morris is followed by the note that his first works, which received less attention at the time of their release, as he was an unknown at the time, were now worthy of a second look, no doubt the reason for the reprint. Of the collection, the reviewer concludes, “Most of these embalm in verse the pleasing legends of King Arthur and his knights of the round table, while all of them show the author’s remarkable command of the simple, pellucid Saxon.”

Morris returned to the collection of poems in 1892, when it was reprinted as one of the first volumes published by his renowned Kelmscott Press. Many scholars have noted Morris’s ongoing interest in the story and have made the connection between the love triangle of Arthur, Guenevere, and Lancelot to a similar triangle composed of William Morris, his wife Jane, and their friend, the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This final edition under Morris’s own hand, shown below, is beautifully printed with woodcut borders and initials.

Aeneids of Virgil

Morris was also known for his translations and later in 1875 published his complete translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, the epic Latin poem composed between 29 and 19 B.C. It was no small feat – the original is composed of 9,896 lines of verse written in dactylic hexameter. The review in the Tribune quotes from the Graphic which stated, “it is almost impossible to conceive of a version more fluent, rhythmical, and supremely beautiful.”

The review then goes into a rather extended discussion of Morris’s use of tobacco, noting that “It is an interesting fact that Morris always writes under the influence of ‘the baneful weed’ – tobacco. . . When the smoke is thickest, the poetry is best.”

Household art

In the May 14, 1876 edition of the Tribune, we find the first mention of Morris as decorator, in this case for his wallpaper designs. In an article entitled “Household Art” written by John J. McGrath, the owner of Chicago’s leading decorating firm, he notes:

“I have procured, by direct importation, a large stock of the Morris and Dresser papers, being the only examples of these designs to be found in this country, executed under the immediate supervision of these ‘art specialists,’ and far excelling in purity of drawing and beauty of coloring anything heretofore presented to the disciples of artistic truths, I cordially commend them to the notice of all who are desirous of escaping from the thralldom of ill-conceived and badly executed designs in wall dressing.”

It is interesting to note that Frances Glessner was a regular customer of McGrath, acquiring wallpapers for her Washington Street home at exactly this time, and probably later for the Big House at The Rocks as well. This would have been her introduction to Morris’s designs, although there is no evidence that she considered any Morris wallpapers until 1883, as we shall see next week.

The Morris mantra

“Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

Morris’s mantra is carefully written – the usefulness of an object is something that is easily determined – a pitcher can hold and pour water; a clock keeps time. But the beauty of an object is subjective, one person may believe it to be beautiful, another may not. The concept became central to the Arts & Crafts movement in highlighting the significance of the decorative arts, and the importance of giving artistic consideration to the creation of all items – not just fine arts, but the everyday objects that surround the average person in their home.

An interesting article from April 1882, which at first glance has nothing to do with Morris, noted a large collection of “beautiful objects of art in the shape of foreign bronzes, carvings, exquisite china and porcelain, old tapestries, rugs, and odd bric-a-brac from every corner of the world, sent on to Chicago from the well-known establishment of Sypher & Co., New York, and to remain on view until next Wednesday, when it will be sold under the hammer.”

The anonymous writer of the column spends considerable time describing many of the objects and their inherent beauty. However, at the close, he turns to Morris and his famous mantra (which was apparently known well-enough for the reference) to consider both the beauty and usefulness of the objects. He writes:

“If everyone heeded the advice of William Morris, to admit nothing into their houses that they did not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful, some of these would have to be excluded on the score of usefulness.”

William Morris the preservationist

Morris was deeply concerned about the state of preservation in the latter half of the 19^th century in England. In 1877, Morris and several friends formed The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in response to what he viewed as “destructive restoration.” This process involved removing later alterations to return buildings to an idealized original state, which may or may not have ever actually existed. Morris felt strongly that the later alterations were part of the history of the structure and advocated for repair and maintenance over the destructive restoration practices. The Society still exists today, and Morris’s principles are now widely accepted.

An article in the February 28, 1883 Chicago Tribune reprinted comments made by Morris regarding the announced demolition of the famous Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy because it was deemed unsafe and might collapse during flooding. Morris’s comments in part read as follows:

“We need hardly point out, the unrivaled historical interest and artistic beauty of this world-famed bridge, with its three graceful arches crowned by a picturesque group of houses, over which is carried the long passage connecting the Pitti and Uffizi Palaces. Not only the arches of the bridge, but portions of some of the houses, are still preserved exactly as designed by Taddeo Gaddi, and built in A. D. 1362 – an object of the greatest beauty both when seen close at hand and as one of the chief features in the glorious distant view from San Miniato . . . it certainly would not be beyond the skill of modern engineers to underpin and secure the falling piers.”

William Morris and his discontent

Morris wrote and lectured extensively on the current state of art. In March 1883, a paragraph in the London Life column of the Chicago Tribune, written by special correspondent Robert Laird Collier, noted Morris’s discontent with the current state of art. It is so well written that it is reproduced here in its entirety:

“William Morris has been talking about ‘blackguardly houses.’ This William Morris is in his way a ‘regular caution.’ He is poet, painter, house-decorator, shopkeeper, lyceum lecturer. He designs wallpapers, stuffs for curtains, carpets, and sells these designs or the manufactured articles. He keeps a shop where one can get the most artistic furniture, and, I believe, one can out of his shop furnish one’s house from top to bottom. He has just been down to Manchester lecturing at a conversazione of art and literary societies. He said he was so discontented at the present condition of art and the matter was so serious that he desired to make other people share in his discontent. He singled out Bournemouth, a fashionable watering seaside resort, and said the houses of the rich there were blackguardly! Whew! What would he say of Vanderbilt’s wallpaper with its diamond dust! What would he say of a Chicago ‘marble front’ house, a ‘back yard’ twenty feet by twenty, and an – alley. But thank God for the iconoclast. He is a nuisance, but he comes before the revolutionists, and the revolutionist comes before the reformer.”

The term ‘blackguardly,’ not widely used today, referred to something lacking principles or scruples, W. M. Thackeray (author of the 1848 novel Vanity Fair) referring to it as “the tyranny of a scoundrelly aristocracy.”

East Cliff Hall, Bournemouth, now the Russell-Cotes House and Museum

Morris the Socialist

The reference to Morris as iconoclast was appropriate. Most of the references in the Chicago Tribune by the mid-1880s referred not to his work as house-decorator, but to his belief in Socialism, of which he was a leading and outspoken proponent. In February 1885, the Chicago Tribune reprinted a song written by William Morris entitled “The March of the Workers” that had just been published in the English Socialist journal, the Commonwealth. Sung to the tune of “John Brown” (the same tune used for the Battle Hymn of the Republic), it consisted of eight verses and chorus. Beautifully written and displaying his talents as a poet, we reprint here the first and last verse plus the chorus.

“What is this, the sound and rumor? What is this that all men hear,

Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near,

Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear?

‘Tis the people marching on.

“On we march then, we the workers, and the rumor that ye hear,

Is the blended sound of battle and deliv’rance drawing near?

For the hope of every creature is the banner that we bear,

And the world is marching on.

Chorus:
“Hark, the rolling of the thunder!

Lo, the sun! and lo, thereunder

Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,

And the host comes marching on.”

Header from the booklet, “Useful Work Versus Useless Toil,” published by William Morris in 1885, the same year he composed the March of the Workers. The header was designed by his friend and fellow Socialist, artist Walter Crane.

William Morris the Socialist was quoted even more frequently in the newspaper following the Haymarket affair/riot in May 1886. A particularly strong statement, issued in the Commonwealth by Morris on November 12, 1887, the day after four of the “anarchists” were executed was addressed “To the Well-to-Do People of America,” and read in part:

“If you are sure that henceforward the workingmen of your country will live placid and happy lives, then you need think no more of the murder you have committed, for a happy people cannot take vengeance, however grievously they have been wronged; but if it be so with you, as with other nations of civilizations that your workers toil without reward and without hope, oppressed with sordid anxiety for mere livelihood, depraved of the due pleasures of humanity; if there is yet suffering and wrong amongst you, then take heed; increase your army of spies and informers; hire more reckless swashbucklers to do your will; guard every approach to your palace of pleasure without scruple and without mercy, and yet you will but put off for a while the certain vengeance of ruin that will overtake you, and your misery and suffering, which to you in your forgetfulness of your crimes will then seem an injustice, will have to be the necessary step on which the advance of humanity will have to mount to happier days beyond . . . You have sown the wind, you must reap the whirlwind.”

William Morris a bit soured

By now we have seen that William Morris was a man of strong opinions on a range of topics. To close this week, we return briefly to his thoughts on art. Perhaps of most interest is how he is introduced in the first sentence of a short Tribune article from May 1886 – poet, Socialist, and artistic designer – in that order. One cannot help but wonder if he would have introduced himself the same way. His quote, from a London talk given a few days earlier:

“During the last forty years people have conscientiously striven to raise the taste in art, yet the world is growing uglier and more commonplace.”

NEXT WEEK

We do not know the extent to which Frances Glessner was aware of William Morris’s Socialist beliefs, or if she read his poetry, but in 1883 she began to study his views on art. The commissioning of H. H. Richardson to design the Glessner home in 1885 significantly strengthened that interest.

William Morris 1883

The extensive use of wallpapers, textiles, and rugs by Morris & Co. in the Glessner house is well documented, and in recent years, many of these items have been faithfully reproduced and reinstalled.  H. H. Richardson, as a major proponent of Morris & Co. in the United States, certainly influenced the Glessners’ decision to acquire these items for their home.  In this article, however, we will see that Frances Glessner became well-acquainted with William Morris more than two years before she ever met Richardson.

Introduction to William Morris

The earliest mention of Morris in Frances Glessner’s journal occurs on Tuesday March 6, 1883, “I went to the Decorative Art Society.  Wm. Morris and his designs was the subject – it was very interesting.”  Frances Glessner was an early member of the Chicago Society of Decorative Art, founded in 1877 “to help impoverished women master the skills of an honorable trade particularly by training women artists and artisans in the applied arts.”  (The organization survives today as The Antiquarian Society at the Art Institute of Chicago).  It would have been the logical place for her to learn about Morris and his emerging impact on the decorative arts.

As was often the case with Frances Glessner, when a topic piqued her interest, she actively pursued it.  Less than a week later, she noted in her journal, “I am reading Morris’ Hopes and Fears for Art.”  By the following week, she had finished the book.

Hopes and Fears for Art

This volume, published in both the United Kingdom and the United States in 1882, was a collection of five lectures delivered by Morris in Birmingham, London, and Nottingham between 1878 and 1881, namely:

-The Lesser Arts

-The Art of the People

-The Beauty of Life

-Making the Best of it

-The Prospects of Architecture in Civilization

In the lectures, Morris states many of his widely known views, including the inherent value of handicraft, and the evils of industrialization.  The fifth chapter, for example, contains interesting views on architecture and how it relates to the other arts.  It also illuminates his thoughts on historic preservation, not surprising given that he was the founder of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877.  (That organization led indirectly to the founding of the National Trust).  He opens his lecture on architecture as follows:

“The word Architecture has, I suppose, to most of you the meaning of the art of building nobly and ornamentally.  Now, I believe the practice of this art to be one of the most important things which man can turn his hand to, and the consideration of it to be worth the attention of serious people, not for an hour only, but for a good part of their lives, even though they may not have to do with it professionally.

“But, noble as that art is by itself, and though it is specially the art of civilization, it neither ever has existed nor ever can exist alive and progressive by itself, but must cherish and be cherished by all the crafts whereby men make the things which they intend shall be beautiful, and shall last somewhat beyond the passing day.

“It is this union of the arts, mutually helpful and harmoniously subordinated one to another, which I have learned to think of as Architecture.”

John J. McGrath

Before the month of March 1883 had drawn to a close, Frances Glessner considered the purchase of Morris products for her summer home at The Rocks, then under construction.  On Friday March 23, she noted, “I took Mrs. Avery down to McGrath’s to see Wm. Morris designs in materials for furnishing.  We had a delightful morning.  I selected a lovely combination for The Rocks, but it is too expensive.”

Chicago Tribune, February 3, 1883

McGrath’s was a reference to the wholesale and retail establishments of John J. McGrath.  An article in the Chicago Tribune on January 1, 1883, noted that his firm sold more paper-hangings than any other firm on the continent.  In addition, a number of European manufacturers, “recognizing the advantages of Chicago as a distributing point,” made McGrath’s their exclusive agent in the United States, thus requiring Eastern buyers to purchase from him. 

Although Frances Glessner did not purchase the Morris & Co. items she admired, she had been a customer of McGrath’s for several years, purchasing numerous wallpapers there for her home on West Washington Street.

Later History

Frances Glessner makes no further mentions of Morris in her journal until February 1887 when she began actively purchasing rugs, textiles and wallpapers for her new home being built on Prairie Avenue.  Many of these items, including a Hammersmith rug for the main hall, were purchased through Marshall Field & Co., which by that time, was offering a line of goods from the English firm.

Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1887