Lot 107
ATTRIBUTED TO MAY MORRIS (1862-1938)
EMBROIDERED TABLE COVER, CIRCA 1900
Auction: Day One | Lots 1 to 229 | Wed 15th April 2026 from 10am
Description
coloured silks reserved on Morris & Co. ‘Oak’ pattern silk damask, lined, bears applied card inscribed TABLE COVER/ MORRIS PATTERN ON/ BROCADE/ WORKED BY ALICE G. BALFOUR/ KIRKFORTHAT FEUS S.W.R.I. 1920
Dimensions
147cm x 148cm
Provenance
Alice G. Balfour (1880-1979), Balbirnie House, Markinch, Fife
Footnote
Literature:
Hulse, Lynn, May Morris Designs, Ashmolean Museum 2025, pp. 34, 43, figs.13, 22, where similar designs are illustrated
This table cover is reserved on a Morris & Co. damask, a known practice of May Morris’ when she was working for the firm. Whilst the label on the piece states an exhibition date of 1920, the pattern components suggest a design date of 1890-1900. The geometric layout of the design, with vegetal-shaped motifs emerging from the border echoes Morris’ Vine Leaf table cover of 1896, whilst the artichoke-like rendering of the flowers amongst leafy stems is reminiscent of her Autumn and Winter panel of 1894. The latter, like the table cover offered here, is also executed on Morris & Co. Oak silk.
The label attached to the table cover identifies the embroiderer of the piece as Alice G. Balfour. Born in 1880, Alice Georgiana Balfour was the daughter of Edward Balfour and Isabella Wyman Hooper of Balbirnie House. Kirkforthar Feus, where this piece was exhibited, lies within two miles of Balbirnie and would therefore have been Balfour’s local Scottish Women’s Institute group. Census records reveal that having spent her youth in Scotland and London, Alice emigrated to New York in 1938. She returned to her homeland however and having lived to the age of 98 was buried in Glenrothes, Fife. Alice was loosely related to the prime minister and lynchpin of the elite ‘Souls’ set A. J. Balfour, the two sharing a great-great grandfather.
