A group of 59 tiles from an important 'Acanthus' tile panel, designed 1876

William Morris designed this motif for a group of six panels intended for the bathroom at Membland Hall, Devon, part of an 1876 commission from the architect George Devey (1820-1886) for his client, the merchant banker Edward Charles Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke (1828-1897). The original six panels, each composed of 66 tiles, were painted at the Chelsea studio of William De Morgan on red clay blanks produced by the Poole Architectural Pottery firm of Dorset. When installed side-by-side, the six panels would form a continuous pattern of Persian-inspired scrolling foliage and flowers, creating an impression similar to Morris' previous wallpaper designs but with motifs at a larger scale and with a use of negative space unprecedented in his oeuvre. The panel design appeared in the stocklist of Morris & Co. continuously through the early 1910s, and is known to have been produced several times after the initial Membland Hall commission. Although Membland was sold in 1916 and demolished in 1928, the original six panels survive, including an example in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (accession no. C.36-1972), another in the collection of the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, where a watercolor design for the motif is also held (catalogue nos. C176 and A31) and a third, sold at Sotheby's, London, 19 December 1989, lot 81, which is now in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (accession no. OAO 1210). For a longer discussion of the Membland tiles, see R. and H. Myers, William Morris Tiles: the Tile Designs of Morris and His Fellow-Workers, Shepton Beauchamp, 1996, pp. 123-124, figs. 221 and 222.