Ladrón de Fresas

Strawberry Thief, is one of William Morris’s most popular repeat designs for textiles. It takes as its subject the thrushes Morris found stealing fruit from the orchard at his country home, Kelmscott Manor , in Oxfordshire . To print the original pattern, Morris used the painstaking indigo discharge method he admired over all forms of printing. He first attempted to print by this method in 1875, but it was not until 1881, when he moved to his factory at Merton Abbey, near Wimblendon, that he succeeded. In May 1883, Morris wrote to his daughter, “I was at Merton a good deal last week … anxiously superintending the first printing of the strawberry thief, which I think we shall succeed this time.” Satisfied with this success, he registered the design with the Patent Office. Morris’s original pattern was the first design to use the technique in which red ( alizarin dye ) was added and which has inspired this reddish-hued version.