William Morris: Strawberry Thief, 1883 – Porcelain Art Mug

William Morris registered the design for Strawberry Thief in 1883. It came out of the kitchen garden at Kelmscott Manor, where song thrushes worked their way under the nets and carried off the fruit. Two birds face each other across a stem of acanthus with a strawberry between them; behind them an indigo ground carries oak leaves, dog-roses and the small four-petalled flowers Morris had studied in mediaeval herbals.

It was the most difficult thing his firm had yet attempted. To keep a true indigo ground and still print colour over it, Morris had to master the indigo-discharge process: the cotton was dyed blue in the vat, the pattern bleached back out of it, and the cleared areas then printed by hand from wood blocks. He worked at it for years, and the finished pattern carries more colours than any other of his printed textiles. This length was block-printed at Merton Abbey around 1936, from the original blocks.

The mug carries the pattern as a frieze, at roughly a quarter of life size. The section follows the detail the museum itself publishes of this length: the pair of thrushes with the strawberry between them, set at the centre of the front so that neither bird is cut, and the acanthus stem carrying the eye on around the cup.

Fine Porcelain — 10 oz. Dishwasher and microwave safe.

William Morris, Strawberry Thief, design registered 1883; indigo-discharged cotton, plain weave, block printed, c. 1936, Merton Abbey. 88.2 × 99 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Henry Chisholm, 1937.696. Public domain (CC0).

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.