WILLIAM DE MORGAN (1839-1917)

William De Morgan frequently employed ship motifs as a pun on the idea of 'craftsmanship'. A design for a six-inch tile depicting a galleon from the same perspective, its sails and pennants in the same configuration and the sea beneath it forming near-identical waves, was given to the Victoria and Albert Museum (accession no. E.819-1917) by Evelyn de Morgan in 1917. A tile executed to this design is held in the De Morgan Collection, Barnsley (object no. C.WDM.T0612). The motif is recorded as having been designed prior to 1888, the year in which De Morgan and Halsey Ricardo entered into partnership to operate the Sands End Pottery in Fulham.