C.F.A Voysey (1857-1941) ‘The Rose’ pile carpet, Morton and co., woven Killybegs, Donegal, Ireland, circa 1899

By family tradition, purchased in Dublin in 1899

Thence by descent

Charles Francis Annesley Voysey, the influential Arts and Crafts architect, who was known particularly for his furniture, textiles, carpets and wallpaper, provided designs for many British firms including the carpet manufactories Templeton’s, Tomkinson & Adam and Yates and Co. and also Ginzkey in Austria, and the department stores Heal’s and Liberty’s. He was contracted in 1897 by Alexander Morton and Co. to provide designs for a minimum of ten textile designs each year for five years. 

Morton and Co., founded by Alexander Morton (1844-1923) was originally a textiles firm: Morton had set up his first hand loom in his family’s cottage in Darvel in Ayrshire in 1860. By 1875 he had Darval’s first mechanical lace machine and by 1886 had forty machines. Morton’s produced lace, hand-loom fabrics, chenille and double-cloth carpets in Darvel. Alexander, and particularly his son James, were enthusiastic supporters of artist designers for the firm’s products, inspired by William Morris and the ethos of the arts and crafts movement. Morton and Co. diversified into hand knotted carpets with support from the British Government and the Congested Districts Board (established by A.J. Balfour in 1891) to promote industry in rural Ireland. Their first carpets were woven in a rented hayloft in Killybegs in Donegal; production commenced in 1898 and in the following year Donegal carpets were exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Society’s second exhibition in Dublin. A contemporary article on ‘The Mortons of Darvel’, which describes the set up of the various types of production, from lace to carpets, appeared in The Art Journal of 1900, pp. 7-11 and pp.78-82. It also illustrates the weaving of carpets in Killybegs and describes the process in detail (pp.81-82) (see https://archive.org/details/sim_art-journal-us_1900/page/6/mode/2up)

Linda Parry notes that ‘The Rose’, designed by C.F.A. Voysey in circa 1897 for Alexander Morton and Co. was originally produced as a silk and wool double cloth for Morton’s Helena range and the design was adapted by Gavin Morton (James Morton’s cousin, who was in charge of the hand-knotted carpet studio) to be woven as a carpet in their newly established weaving workshop in Donegal. It appears to be the earliest dateable carpet woven in Donegal to a Voysey design; James Morton noted that the seventh carpet to be woven in Ireland was from a Helena textile of 1897. (See Parry, Linda and David Cathers, et al, Arts and Crafts Rugs for Craftsman Interiors, The Crab Tree Farm Collection, New York, 2010, Cat. 21, pp. 66-67). A watercolour design for a related textile by Voysey for Morton and Co. for Liberty’s called ‘Rose and Crown’ is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Accession No. E.157-1974. A similar design was also supplied by Voysey for a wallpaper ‘Briar’, produced by Essex and Co., see Victoria & Albert Museum, Accession No. E.1887-1953 for an example. The application of related designs in different media was not unusual; for example Voysey’s design ‘Duleek’ was produced as a wallpaper, and also as a woven furnishing fabric and carpet by Morton and Co. 

A carpet of ‘The Rose’ design was exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland in Dublin, in 1899 along with half a dozen other Donegal carpets, by the Dublin firm of Millar & Beatty, ‘house furnishers’ and retailers of Morton and Co. production in Ireland. The report on the exhibition by the artist-potter Harold Rathbone praised the carpet because “the flat treatment of the roses is excellently understood”, see Haslam, Malcolm, Arts and Crafts Carpets, London, 1991, p. 107. Rathbone also wrote of ‘The Rose’ that its design “calls to mind some of the best things, though not, of course, the most elaborate of William Morris, while much has here been acquired in the matter of repose and breadth, which one does not always associate with the poet’s [i.e. Morris] work”. (Haslam, ibid., pp. 107-11). Simplicity and lightness, ‘repose and breadth’ were qualities aimed for in Voysey’s work and much appreciated by the artistic cognoscenti at the dawn of the new century. Another example of ‘The Rose’ was exhibited at the Grafton Galleries exhibition of Irish carpets in 1903, in which Liberty’s exhibited some seventeen Donegal carpets.

Parry, op. cit., p. 66 notes that when James Morton took designs for carpets to show Maple and Co., one of the large London furnishing department stores, they asked to see a woven sample. The Art Journal, op.cit. p. 80 illustrates a sample section of ‘The Rose’ showing a section of field and one border and states: ‘The latest development of carpet-making in Messrs. Morton’s hands is not to be seen in full swing at Darvel, but the results can be seen in the show-rooms there and the method studied at an experimental loom, if one may so describe the simple frame on which these carpets are made.’ Clearly, samples to show the available designs and colourways of the hand-knotted carpets were available for perusal by clients prior to ordering. The additional piece included in this lot may have been woven initially to confirm the colour selection for the weaving of this carpet, which has been executed in a combination of gentle greens, lavender, blues and coral.

For examples of ‘The Rose’ in various colourways, see Parry, op.cit., p. 67; Haslam, op.cit., fig. 59, p. 94 (and again in Haslam, Malcolm, ‘Vigour of the Outer Air: Donegal Carpets’, Hali 57, June 1991, pp. 106 - 107), fig. 71, p. 110; a fragmented example in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Accession No. T.58-1976; an example of similar size and pale colouring previously in the collections of Sir Evan David Jones, Pentower, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales (probably purchased soon after the house was built in 1898) and Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, now with Keshishian. Examples of ‘The Rose’ at auction are relatively rare, but include: Replica Shoes ’s New York, December 2, 2003, lot 89 and  Doris Leslie Blau, October 1, 2002, lot 37; Christie’s, April 12, 2018, lot 198; March 26 2008, lot 174, May 5, 1995, lot 23. The present example, which has remained in the same family since it was woven, exemplifies Voysey’s aim to produce artworks with “Breadth [which] is on the side of simplicity and repose”. (see Haslam, op.cit., p. 112). Its accompaniment by the matching sample appears to be unprecedented.