Cherryellie Designs and Arts & Crafts
Cherryellie Designs is very proud to sell
cushions,
throws and
runners designed from
Morris and
Sanderson fabric. Most of the beautiful designs first created by
William Morris from the 1860s onwards are still being printed and still as popular today as they were then. Their beliefs sit very well with our own. We are against mass production and in favour of individually designed quality products being hand crafted in the UK using the best British designer fabric.
Arts & Crafts Movement a Brief History
William Morris who hated the mass production of the Victorian age was a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement of designers and craftsmen who formed themselves into guilds and viewed the middle ages as the golden age of craftsmanship with quality and use of right materials for job.
The guild restored the dignity and prestige of the artisian which had all but disappeared with Victorian industrialisation. The artistic integrity using humble local materials with an honesty to function . Most Arts and Crafts furniture had an austere strong architectural form.
William Morris & Co produced style colourful embroideries woven textiles and wallpaper and carpets based on flowers, foliage and animals using natural animal and vegetable dyes.
At the same time Arthur Sanderson founded his wallpaper firm in 1860. From his premises in Soho Square, London, Sanderson distributed American, French, Japanese and English products, becoming one of the leading wall covering merchants in Britain. This period of success culminated in 1923 when Arthur Sanderson & Sons was awarded the Royal Warrant as Purveyors of Wallpapers to the King.
Architects of the time such as Philip Webb and F.G.A. Voysey designed houses in the same style. Rooms were light and spacious in white or pale colour natural coloured wood floors with rugs. Furniture plain and upright and largely made of oak. Walls often had picture rails painted a uniform pale colour to match the ceiling or dado or tongue and groove panelling. Windows treatments consisted of a simple style curtain hung from a pole.
Decorative motifs were inspired by nature birds, animals and flowers. The Arts and Crafts movement introduced olive greens, plum, hyacinth blue, burgundy, lemon yellow, taupe, rose, ivory, pale grey and white.
Tiffany & Co produced leaded stained-glass lampshades while Handel & Co based in USA also produced beautiful hand painted crafted glass lamps.
Moorcraft’s beautiful Arts & Crafts design pottery began in 1897 and in 1913 he set up his own ceramics factory with designs such as Pansy, Orchid, Leaf and Berry, Ruskin and Doulton embraced Arts & Crafts.
William de Morgan one of the most important and prolific designers of the Arts & Crafts period produced tiles and pottery with bird, animal and plant designs in exotic colours, gold, rich ruby, reds and vivid purple, green and turquoise blue.
Libertys opened in 1875 and began by selling furniture from Arts and Crafts designers but then went on to produce their own furniture and sell through their stores and by catalogue at a cheaper price which undermined the movement and eventually led to its downfall.
