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Source Description
Perhaps the most recognizable of Morris’s textiles, <em>Strawberry Thief</em> celebrates the thrushes in Kelmscott Manor’s garden. May Morris remarked, “You can picture my Father going out in the early morning and watching the rascally thrushes at work on the fruit beds and telling the gardener who growls, ‘I’d like to wring their necks!’ that no bird in the garden must be touched.” With <em>Strawberry Thief, </em>Morris perfected the indigo-discharge process, which required the entire cloth to be dyed blue before it was bleached and block printed, in this case with more colors than any of his other textiles.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
117129
label
Strawberry Thief
core
obj
dtoType
object
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
117129
contentType
object
title
Strawberry Thief
description
Perhaps the most recognizable of Morris’s textiles, <em>Strawberry Thief</em> celebrates the thrushes in Kelmscott Manor’s garden. May Morris remarked, “You can picture my Father going out in the early morning and watching the rascally thrushes at work on the fruit beds and telling the gardener who growls, ‘I’d like to wring their necks!’ that no bird in the garden must be touched.” With <em>Strawberry Thief, </em>Morris perfected the indigo-discharge process, which required the entire cloth to be dyed blue before it was bleached and block printed, in this case with more colors than any of his other textiles.
date
c 1936
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q60745767
creators
24604
genreSpecific
Textile
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Overall: 88.3 x 99.1 cm (34 3/4 x 39 in.)
cul
England, Merton Abbey, 20th century
accession
1937.696
Source extras
tec
plain weave cotton, discharge printed
tombstone
Strawberry Thief, c 1936. Designed by William Morris (British, 1834–1896). Plain weave cotton, discharge printed; overall: 88.3 x 99.1 cm (34 3/4 x 39 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Henry Chisholm, 1937.696
collection
Textiles
citations
citation
Parry, Linda. William Morris Textiles. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983.
page_number
p. 155, no 46
citation
Lemonedes, Heather. “Imaging the Garden: The garden is a ground plot for the mind. —Thomas Hill, <em>The Gardener’s Labyrinth</em> (1577).” <em>Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine</em> 55, no. 6 (November/December 2015): 4-6.
page_number
Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 6
citation
Korkow, Cory. "Textiles." IN <em>William Morris: Designing an Earthly Paradise.</em> Cory Korkow and Victoria Hepburn, 8-23. Cleveland, Ohio : Cleveland Museum of Art, 2017.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 18-19; reproduced: p. 19, fig, 13.
creditline
Gift of Mrs. Henry Chisholm
updatedAt
2026-05-29 06:05:10.628000
sourceId
117129
dept
Textiles
coll
Textiles
med
plain weave cotton, discharge printed
creatorTags
male
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
cf5f3b3f10ff7bfe