Design

1876

Item

George Aitchison: George Aitchison was an architect and designer of the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetics Movements. He had a life long association with Frederic Leighton and is best known for being the architect behind Leighton's house in Holland Park Road. From 1847 to 1849 Aitchison studied architecture at the Royal Academy Schools. He then took a degree in structural science at University College, graduating in 1851 and winning two prizes for mathematics. He completed his education visiting the Continent and at Easter of 1853 he was in Rome where he met the painter George Heming Mason (1818-72) and through him was introduced to Frederic Leighton, Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905), Edward Poynter (1836-1919), Giovanni Costa (1826-1903), Rudolph Lehmann (1819-1905) and William Burges (1827-81). All were to become his friends. He was involved in the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Building and an examiner alongside Walter Crane for the National Art Schools' competitions. From 1887 to 1905 he was Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy and from 1896-1899 he served as President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, receiving the Queen’s Gold Medal in 1898, the same year he was elected a full Royal Academician. George and a number of other members of his family, including his sister provided designs for the Royal School of Art Needlework in the 1870s.

Design on paper watercolour and body-colour (gouache) with stylised flowers and fruits on a blue background, edged with a border. The main flower is terracotta with darker highlights on petals. The centre of the flower is black surrounded by grey hearts. Between the petals are green leaves. Part of a yellow flower with stamens can be seen at the top of the design. The stems and leaves in a sinuous pattern work across the design. There are two different types of fruits. One is in brown and resembles a small pomegranate and is attached to pale green leaves that resemble acanthus leaves. The other fruits are depicted in both white and mauve and are round but segmented with a green tip. The border is in purple and blue with green spots outlined in brown.

Designed as a mirror repeat the top part of the design is missing in a way that is seemingly deliberate suggesting that it was not preserved here in a way that needed to be useful for copying and replication, that must have happened elsewhere with other versions of the design.

This design is part of of a folio of designs, many of which were submitted to the Arts Committee of the Royal School of Art Needlework between 1874 and 1876 and eventually displayed as embroideries at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition between May and October 1876. A note of the bottom of the design reads: G Aitchison, 7 October 1876 embroidered on blue satin. This signature date suggested it would have been submitted too late to be considered for Philadelphia. It can be found in later design cards and books for the RSAN however, and seems to have been offered to customers for a number of years.

This design is seen in two colour-ways in the design book and the note on material and colour seems to be typical of Aitchison's careful and sophisticated use of colour and a wish to control that colour selection when it was translated into needlework.

embroidered on blue satin' G Aitchesin 7 October 1876

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