WILLIAM MORRIS: QUILL PEN AND PAINT BRUSH BELONGING TO MORRIS

WILLIAM MORRIS: QUILL PEN AND PAINT BRUSH BELONGING TO MORRIS Provenance: From the Collection of Dorothy Walker (1878-1963), daughter of Sir Emery Walker (1851-1933) and thence by descent. Emery Walker, typographer, printer and a major figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement, was friends with William Morris from the 1870s and they were neighbours in Hammersmith in West London. Morris took pleasure in seeing Walker on a regular, and sometimes daily basis and Walker encouraged Morris to set up the Kelmscott Press. After Morris's death in 1896, Walker founded the Doves Press, in partnership with T Cobden-Sanderson, becoming thereby a pioneer of the Private Press movement in Britain and the United States. After Walker's death in 1933, Dorothy Walker maintained the family house at 7 Hammersmith Terrace in an unaltered state and it became a kind of shrine to the Arts and Crafts Movement. Upon Dorothy's death in 1963 the house was cared for by her companion, Elizabeth de Haas, and when she died in 1999, a charitable trust was set up to preserve the house and its collections, and make it accessible to the public. Within the house are many things connected to Morris and his circle, including Morris's spectacles and Rossetti's teapot. Dorothy Walker was also a friend of Morris's daughter May, and examples of May Morris's needlework are in the house. The pen was made by the London supplier of artists' materials, Charles Roberson and Company, where Morris was a regular customer. The attached label attributing to Morris is in Dorothy Walker's hand. With the pen are letters from Emery and Dorothy Walker, some of which relate to Walker knighthood in 1930, memorial booklets for Emery Walker and Dorothy Walker, a drawing of Dorothy Walker and a lithograph of Emery Walker. The original of the Emery Walker portrait is on display in 7 Hammersmith Terrace.