Sarah Mead Leonard
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smeadleonard.bsky.social
Sarah Mead Leonard
@smeadleonard.bsky.social
1.6K followers 880 following 300 posts
Associate Director of Fellowships and Academic Programs, Newberry Library (all views my own). PhD. Victorian Art History, #MaterialCulture, #HistoricLandscapes, those kinds of things. Also running @morris-on-screen.bsky.social
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A nice Wikimedia Commons find from this week - a floral diagram of a wallflower (Erysimum bicolor "Bowles' Mauve"), made from the flower itself.

#FloralFriday #FlowersOnFriday
A bloom of Erysimum bicolor (wallflower), deconstructed and laid out in the style of a floral diagram illustration so all parts of the flower can be seen. It creates a mandala-like arrangement of pistil, stamens, and petals. The petals are bright purple-magenta, the pistil bright green, and other elements white, light green, and light purple, all on a black background.
August 29, 2025 at 7:45 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
For #TextileTuesday, here are some objects I fell in love with while poking around on the V&A collections website last week: samples of woven fabrics designed by C.F.A. Voysey between 1895 and 1900, woven in strips to show different colorway options.
Sample of "The Duleek", a woven fabric with a symmetrical repeating pattern of trees, stags, swans, and doves. The motifs are flattened and stylized. The pattern is woven in strips of five colorways: tonal green, purple blue and green, tonal orange-reds with greyish doves, tonal yellow-orange, and tonal teal blue. Sample of a woven fabric with a repeating pattern of highly stylized trees, in a shape almost like a playing card spade, rising from layered hills. The pattern is woven in strips of four colorways: tonal yellow, tonal pink-purple, tonal orange-reds, and multi-colored pink, purple, and dark green.
August 26, 2025 at 6:17 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
Something I find endlessly fascinating about American TJ Maxx is that they clearly have a deal with a UK overstock distributor, and that distributor offers generic gift shop goods but also branded products. Thus: a mug of National Trust East Midlands properties, purchased in Western North Carolina.
An array of three mugs a kitchen table. Their designs are: lavender and bees; a cartoony illustration of National Trust properties shown on a map, with the text ‘East Midlands’ inside the rim; and a Eurasian goldfinch and a blue tit on teasels. They all have TJ Maxx price tags ($5.99 each) and the map and lavender ones have Made in England stickers. Closer detail of the East Midlands mug showing more properties. It’s slightly out of focus so the property names can’t be read, sorry.
August 26, 2025 at 4:10 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
For #FragmentFriday, here's a nice bit of fabric I came across this week.

Furnishing fabric, printed cotton. Possibly Bannister Hall print works, c. 1870-1890.

V&A CIRC.1034-1925

To give some idea of the pattern scale, this piece's width is about 34 cm, or just over 13 inches.
A piece of fabric with a light green background, decorated with a naturalistic pattern of large clusters of purple rhododendron blooms with yellow centers, connected by spindly brown branches with small green leaves.
August 22, 2025 at 4:10 PM
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Happy #WorldEmbroideryDay!

This panel, held at the V&A, is a great example of how Morris & Co. sold much of its embroidery: not as finished pieces, but as kits.

The piece would be started by a Morris & Co. worker, demonstrating the recommended techniques, then sold with all necessary supplies.
A panel of cream-colored cotton with an outlined design of intertwining stems, leaves, and anemone flowers drawn on. A small portion of the design has been stitched in silk threads: a blue-green stem, one large yellow-green serrated leaf, a few smaller leaves in various shades of green, two small orange buds, and two mid-sized anemone blooms in shaded pink. A small portion of the background is also stitched, in white.
July 30, 2025 at 1:56 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
As someone whose family has various old-fashoned nut crackers lying around because of abundant Yard Walnuts, I realized what I was looking at, and searched for Blake Brothers nut cracker on the off-chance and: I FOUND PICTURES.

This platonic ideal of a Weird Little Guy really existed!
A Blake Brothers alligator nut cracker. Made of metal and anchored on wood, it has a very long skinny body and tail with little legs and a comically large head and jaw to crack nuts with. A ruler in image shows it's 12 inches long at the point where its tail doubles back. Close up of the gator's head. It is molded to have a scary expression in its eye but the overall effect is beautifully silly. It is possibly crunching down on its own front leg?
July 14, 2025 at 8:37 PM
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Here's a closer view. What a Creature. What a Weird Little Guy.
Detail of ad in above post. Illustration shows some kind of reptilian creature with a long body and tail and a very oversized jaw, anchored to a rectangle of material.
July 14, 2025 at 8:30 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
SOMETHING WONDERFUL HAS HAPPENED.

I'm researching the Blake brothers, nephews of Eli Whitney, as part of a larger contract project. I was looking at this 1877 ad for their hardware company and the thing at bottom left caught my eye.
A print ad for Blake Bros. Hardware Co., listing their many products including "Plain and Ornamental Butts, Thumb Latches, STORE DOOR HANDLES" "KEY ESCUTCHEONS that keep the Key in the Lock" and "CORK EXTRACTORS, NUT CRACKERS". There are four illustrations: two door hinges at top left and right, a corkscrew at bottom right, and a weird Thing at bottom left (see next post for detail and description).
July 14, 2025 at 8:27 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
Here's a bit of #MosaicMonday (and also an early #TextileTuesday) - love the intersection of #MidcenturyModern and classical archaeology.

Ramon Prats, "Mosaic" printed cotton, 1954.

Cooper Hewitt 1994-38-3 🪡
A length of textile printed with a pattern depicting a highly detailed mosaic of irregularly shape tesserae making up white letters and letter-like shapes, light blue background tiles, and dark blue grouting.
July 14, 2025 at 6:23 PM
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Their merch (purchased inside the Duck!) is exceptionally good, and Thistle-approved.
A fluffy grey cat sitting very politely beside a collection of Big Duck merch, including a t-shirt, a pennant, a postcard, a sticker, and the shopping bag it all came in. The postcard is a photo but the other objects all have a simple drawing of the duck on green grass in front of a blue sky with puffy white clouds and text reading The Big Duck | Long Island, NY.
June 26, 2025 at 2:03 PM
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I haven’t been around much for a variety of reasons, not least of which is a big move that starts tomorrow, but a couple of weeks ago it was my birthday and my friends took me to see The Big Duck on Long Island, and it was everything I’d dreamed of and more.
A small building shaped like a large duck. It is a white duck with yellow bill, sitting loaf-style. It is about 15 feet high. It sits in grass surrounded by a little flower bed, with asphalt in front of it. There is a door in its chest, ajar.
June 26, 2025 at 1:55 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
Crane's 1879 pattern is like a combination of William Morris's "Trellis" (1862) and Edward Burne-Jones's "Briar Rose" paintings (1870s-1890s) but perhaps gentler than both. I'm reminded of May Morris's memory of being terrified of the "Trellis" birds on the walls of her childhood nursery!
William Morris "Trellis" wallpaper, a thick rose stem in green with red blooms and thorns, growing up between a light brown square trellis on a cream ground, with blue-colored birds flying and perching. Edward Burne Jones's "The Rose Bower” (1871-74 version, Met), a painting of Sleeping Beauty on her bed, surrounded by sleeping attendants. The women are dressed in shades of white, light blue, and dusky rose. Beyond a wall draped in green fabric, thick rose bushes grow, and creep into the room.
May 28, 2025 at 4:50 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
Let's have some more appreciation of Walter Crane's "The Sleeping Beauty" for #WednesdayWallpaper.

I love how the pattern mixes scales and combines botanical observation and fantasy - a bit of whimsical joy, designed for children's bedrooms.
A dense wallpaper pattern in shades of cream, yellow, and green, with touches of pink. Small figures in medieval dress and animals sleep among much larger scale rose briars and blooms, the blossoms bigger than their heads.
May 28, 2025 at 4:36 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
For #WednesdayWallpaper, I'm enjoying this
mid-century modern exploration of historic architecture. "Colonnade" by Robert Nicholson for Wallpaper Manufacturers, Inc., 1956.

V&A E.573-1966 and E.444-1988

#MidCenturyModern
Wallpaper sample of "Colonnade", a pattern of narrow horizontal bands that look like walls with arched openings and smaller windows. Some arches have simple fanlight tracery at the top. Some arches have squares in their openings. The design is in blocky color and looks irregular, like it has been hand-drawn. The colorway is olive green printed on grey, with some cream-white squares in the arches. Wallpaper sample of "Colonnade". Pattern described in first image alt text. This colorway is a purple-grey printed on very light grey or white, with some light blue squares in the arches.
May 21, 2025 at 2:20 PM
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file discoveries have included (this museum is also an active workshop)
A small collection of detritus: a broken plastic lid for something, an unused match, a razor blade.
May 14, 2025 at 4:21 PM
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Adventures in public history - the first time I’ve had to climb a ladder to reach an archive.
A view down from an approximately 10 foot tall lofted space to an office with a red floor. The lofted space, with shelves of document boxes to the left and an open drop to the office to the right. Windows at the end of the loft give a view of trees and a brick industrial building.
May 14, 2025 at 3:54 PM
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And the back is decorated!! The 19th century, always doing the most.
Rear view of the back of the previous chair, again photographed in black and white. The paint is damaged, but the decoration is legible: a very very elaborate roccoo design verging on a grotesque, including leaves, cartouches, and putti. At center top, there is an eagle topped by a sunburst. Below it, going down the middle of the chair, are: a cartouche holding an image of three classically-dressed women, supported by a little figure; a small bowl of roses; and a picturesque landscape in another cartouche.
May 13, 2025 at 1:26 AM
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I just love when a piece of decorative art looks like it could be a Creature. This chair is so ready to sproing.
Black and white photo of a metal swivel chair. Its seat and back are round and upholstered, and joined by metal tracery. Where a moden swivel chair would have a single rod linking seat and legs, there are four doubled strips of metal that bend outwards at 90 degree intervals, each bent to form about 2/3 of a circle. They meet again at the middle and then four elaborate wrought iron legs etend, ending in tiny casters. It looks like it could sproing at any moment.
May 13, 2025 at 1:18 AM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
Been thinking about how much I like micromosaics, so here's one from the Cooper Hewitt for #MosaicMonday.

Only 5.1 x 4.1 x 0.8 cm (2 x 1 5/8 x 5/16 in.)!
A very small brooch with a micromosaic of a bundle of flowers on a black background, with a narrow gold setting. The flowers are mostly roses in white, light pink, and deep pink, set against green leaves. Detail of previous image, making the teensy tiny pieces of the mosaic and the circle-and-diamond decoration of the setting more visible.
May 12, 2025 at 7:32 PM
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For #WednesdayWallpaper, here's Fruit, since you can't see it well in the London Spy screenshot.
William Morris's "Fruit" wallpaper, a pattern on a cream background. Thin branches reach diagonally from bottom left to top right. The branches have long green leaves and large round fruits and small blossoms in shades of green, gold, and red. The fruits are oranges, lemons, and pomegranates. The pomegranates are open to show their red seeds.
April 30, 2025 at 3:18 PM
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New weird William Morris + AI phenomenon observed today: spammy nonsense posts with photo-realistic images that for some reason still include "William Morris style" in their prompts.
Screenshot of Bsky account "Wanderlust Chronicles" post reading: "Today we visited Senso-ji Temple in Tokyo and were struck by the vibrant atmosphere and stunning architecture of this iconic Shinto shrine. The temple's ornate gates, colorful lanterns, and bustling street food stalls surrounding it made for a truly immersive […] [Original post on mstdn.forfun.su]" followed by an AI-generated photorealistic image of a Japanese shrine with man red lanters. The AI-generated shrine image from the post. Its alt text gives the AI information: "Prompt: Senso-ji Temple Tokyo, William Morris style, , Senso-ji Temple, Tokyo, Shinto shrine, vibrant atmosphere, stunning architecture, iconic, ornate gates, colorful lanterns, bustling street food stalls, immersive experience HD, sharp focus, stunningly beautiful, hyper-detailed, cinematic photo, 35mm photograph, film, bokeh, professional, 4k, highly detailed Negative prompt: verybadimagenegative, bad_prompt_version2-neg, easynegative, FastNegativeV2, drawing, painting, crayon, sketch, graphite, impressionist, noisy, blurry, soft, deformed, ugly, extra eyes, bad eyes, ugly eyes, imperfect eyes, deformed pupils, deformed iris, cross-eyed, poorly drawn face, bad face, fused face, ugly face, worst face, unrealistic skin texture, out of frame, poorly drawn hands, cloned face, double face, blurry, bad quality Text model: llama3 Image model: PixelAlchemy".
April 29, 2025 at 10:03 PM
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In celebration of spring really springing here in New England, a tulip #WednesdayWallpaper.

Sidewall (wallpaper), Robinson & Barber, 1947. Cooper Hewitt, 1947-80-7.
A sample of wallpaper: A large, bold, centralized vertical pattern of white tulips, green tulip leaves, and smaller yellow flowers, depicted as though painted with broad brushstrokes, on a black background.
April 23, 2025 at 3:38 PM
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In honor of Marigold's anniversay and for #TextileTuesday, my favorite use of the fabric: this Mary Quant suit, c. 1967.
A suit of jacket and miniskirt in William Morris “Marigold” fabric, a dense white-on-blue pattern of feathery compound leaves, large blooms, and further foliate and floral infill. The jacket has white buttons. It is displayed on a headless museum mannequin in front of a grey background.
April 15, 2025 at 7:34 PM
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I've been thinking about this sampler since I stumbled across it a few weeks ago, so I declare today #SamplerSaturday 🪡.

I love the vivid colors and also the cows.

Adelaida Matamoros, needlepoint sampler, 1879. Mexico. Cooper Hewitt, 1981-28-383.
A vividly colored needlepoint embroidery, a vertical rectangle divided into three sections. In the center square section, a bundle of viola flowers on bright salmon pink is surrounded by a mix of geometric borders that are primarily shades of slue on a mid-pink background. The top 1/3 is upside down as photographed. A dark brown-purple cow stands with a white calf on bright green and yellow grass against a dark blue-purple background, surrounded by light blue and pink geometric and floral borders. In the bottom 1/3, which has a mid-blue background, the blue-purple text "Adelaida Maramoros ano de 1879" is centered along with a pink S surrounded by a laurel wreath. These are symmetrically flanked by large green foliate scrolls with salmon-pink flowers and two blue-purple architectural columns. A detail of the cows from the sampler, now right side up. A dark brown-purple cow stands with a white calf on bright green and yellow grass against a dark blue-purple background, surrounded by light blue and pink geometric and floral borders.
April 12, 2025 at 6:56 PM
smeadleonard.bsky.social
Since I finally made it to the Yale Center for British Art post-reopening today, let's have a #FragmentFriday from their collection:

Unknown artist, "Fragments of Stained Glass in the Window of the Grand Dining Hall in Charterhouse."
A color print showing a stained glass window made up from fragments from other windows, a bit like a collage. Imagery includes and medieval scene (a joust?) in a circle at middle, a crown above it, violets, a lion, an ox, a ship, and various heraldic emblems.
April 11, 2025 at 5:24 PM