Aphrodite embroidered

Romantic, wistful, surrounded by greenery – this house reminds me of a fairy tale, maybe ‘Sleeping Beauty’. In fact, it stands in the middle of the suburb of Bexleyheath, in south-east London, one of the less imaginative or inspiring parts of this great city.

It is the Red House, designed by William Morris and the architect Philip Webb and completed in 1860.

A 26-year old, newly married William Morris spent a large part of his inheritance on building this as his family home. He only lived there for five years.

William Morris was friends with Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Rosetti and Burne-Jones, who regularly visited the Red House.

One of their projects was a series of embroideries of 12 female figures intended as wall hangings.

In the end, only seven were ever made and one of those is the life-sized Aphrodite that in 2009 returned to the house where it was created so many years ago.

Aphrodite was designed by William Morris, and his wife Jane and her friends used a medieval technique of embroidering on heavy linen, then cutting the work out and applying it on a woolen cloth for hanging.

It is  exhibited as it was when the embroiderers abandoned it, unfinished, gazing longingly into the distance.

 

 

 

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