Marvellous colouring and design. It is not very often that one finds Butterfield designed fabric. This was possibly designed for Liberty's. Butterfield (1869-1948) was one of the most successful and important designers of the period, producing repeating patterns for woven and printed textiles as well as wallpapers. Leaving school at eighteen he worked in an a West India merchant's office for a year while attending night classes at Lambeth School of Art. Brief experience in his cousin's architectural office, he spent three years at the National Art Training School of South Kensington and won a number of awards while still a student, including an Owen Jones prize in the National Competition of 1890. He had established himself by 1894 as a free-lance designer. He taught at a number of art schools including the Central School of Arts & Crafts and was a founder memebr of the Society of Designers. Butterfield sold designs to most of Britain's leading manufacturers G P & J Baker, Thomas Wardle, Warner & Sons, Turnbull and Stockdale and Alexander Morton. See Textiles of the Arts and Crafts Movement Linda Parry (V & A 1988) Making their Mark by Slyvia Backemeyer (Herbert Press 2000)
printed cotton furnishing cotton with a linear pattern of stylised flower heads alternating in direction, in shades of red on cream ground, 8ft 3 in 52 cm d x 31 in 79 cm w (selvege to selvege) ; pattern repeat 15 in. 38 cm.
Very good.
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