The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

19/10/2026

'Kate Faulkner was not simply working in William Morris’s shadow – she was a key artist in her own right,'

Karen Livingstone, Senior Curatorial Advisor on our 'A Call to Art' exhibition and Deputy Director, speaks to The Guardian about new research which is shedding light on Kate Faulkner and her work as a designer, maker and workshop supervisor at Morris & Co.

📆 'A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites' opens Friday 23 October

Creativity and influence of Morris & Co designer Kate Faulkner to be detailed in Cambridge exhibition

19/10/2026

🌹Meet one of the women who helped shape the Pre-Raphaelite world…

Born into poverty in Oxford on this day in 1839, Jane was just 17 when she first modelled for Pre-Raphaelite artists. In 1859, she married designer and activist William Morris, becoming a skilled embroiderer and an important collaborator in his creative enterprises.

✝️💜 This drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is a study for a Nativity scene. It was made while Jane was expecting her first child – offering us a glimpse of the woman whose life and work became closely intertw**ed with the Pre-Raphaelite circle.

👀 Want to discover more about the women behind the movement? Explore their stories in our upcoming exhibition, 'A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites'.

⚡ Bringing together paintings, drawings, textiles, ceramics and rarely seen works from our collection, the exhibition offers a fresh perspective on Morris, his circle and the ideas that shaped art, craft and design.

💫 ’A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites’
Opening 23 October 2026

🔗 Tap the link in our bio to book your tickets.

✏️ Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Jane Morris, 1860. Graphite and grey wash on paper. Photo © the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

18/10/2026

🥭 A good book, your friends and a mango tree…

📖 This album (muraqqa') was compiled in late Mughal South Asia. It brings together 39 Indian and Persian paintings and examples of calligraphy from different times and places.

Collecting paintings, calligraphy and other works on paper in an album was a way to display connoisseurship and taste for the elite. Bringing together works from Iran and India, this album reveals its owners' wide-reaching social networks.

👀 This image shows three women hanging out beneath a mango tree and shows connoisseurship wasn't just limited to men. Each woman is performing her pleasures just as she pleases. One reads a book, one smokes a water pipe (or ho**ah), while another breaks off a branch of the tree – symbolising nature’s abundance.

🎵 See this and more in our free display 'A Mughal Songbook: Art, Music and Empire', where you can experience the vibrant world of song, poetry and performance of Mughal South Asia from around 1750 to 1850.

🔗 Find out more and plan your visit: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/exhibitions/a-mughal-songbook-art-music-and-empire

🌳 Women under a mango tree, Album (muraqqaʿ) of 39 Indian and Persian paintings and calligraphy. Painting completed in Avadh, 1770s.

17/10/2026

💐🔍 Can you name the flower? Or, better yet, can you name the designer?

If you said 'William Morris', you'd be incorrect...

🌹 In fact, his daughter, May Morris, designed this 'Honeysuckle' wallpaper in 1883. May, who passed away on this day in 1938, was one of only four people besides William Morris who regularly designed patterns for the Morris & Co. firm.

🧵 In addition to her design work, May was also a skilled embroiderer whose work helped to establish embroidery as an artistic discipline.

You can see this light and uplifting design and more of May Morris' work in our upcoming exhibition, 'A Call to Art', where you can discover the radical vision of William Morris and his circle.

Find out more and book your tickets: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/exhibitions/a-call-to-art-william-morris-and-the-pre-raphaelites

🌀 ’A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites’
📆 Opening 23 October
🎟️ Friends go free

🖼️ May Morris, Honeysuckle wallpaper. Block-printed paper, designed 1883, printed before 1940. © William Morris Gallery, London

13/10/2026

🍂😌 It's crunchy leaf season and we're here for it. Can you name all the trees from their leaves?

English artist Cecilia Glaisher created these prints in 1857 for an album titled ‘Leaves of the British forest trees Nature Printed’ 🍁

Nature prints are made by inking a natural object like the leaves here, and printing them onto a surface like paper. In the mid-1800s, nature printing was seen as a way to capture ‘true’ natural forms without the interference of the artist’s pen or brush.

Glaisher made this series of leaf prints on paper and then added colour to show how the leaves looked in different seasons. For the oak leaves (image one), she printed the leaves onto the page and then hand-drew the branch and acorns 🍃

🔍 Cecilia Glaisher, nature prints of leaves from ‘Leaves of the British forest trees Nature Printed’, 1857. Photos © the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

11/10/2026

✈️ Looking to travel abroad this season?

You don't need a boarding pass to explore 300 years of Italian culture and connection – just visit our newly redeveloped gallery 7.

🇮🇹 From paintings to furniture, sculpture and ceramics, discover the story of how Italy became a hotbed of artistic skill, imagination and innovation.

Uncover the connections that allowed art and artists to flourish in Italy between 1500–1800 and examine how art from the country was understood in the past and what it means to us today.

📍 Our galleries are free to visit and we're open Tuesday – Sunday: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit

📸 by Rosie Powell

This redisplay is a result of ‘Italian Renaissance Objects and Spaces of Encounter’, a collaborative project between the University of Cambridge and the University of St Andrews funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

10/10/2026

🍻 Dutch artist Jan Steen painted a lot of drunk people. In fact, he became so well known for his lively tavern scenes that to this day in the Netherlands a rowdy home is called 'een huishouden van Jan Steen' - ‘a Jan Steen household'.

Born in Leiden in 1625, Steen was the son of a brewer and grew up above a tavern called The Red Halbert. He started off as a landscape painter and quickly moved on to biblical, mythological and then domestic scenes.

Known for his comic storytelling, his paintings are packed with jokes and juicy hidden details.

🔎 Steen's characters are frequently depicted to doing one of the following:

🍺Swigging w**e and ale
🚬 Smoking pipes
💋 Flirting
😴 Dozing drunkenly
😄 Laughing
🎤 Singing
🎻 Making music

👀 Sound like anyone you know? Tag them in the comments.

Come and see all the details for yourself and find 'Village Festival' on display in gallery 15.

🖼️ Jan Steen, 'Village festival', c.1650, oil on canvas. Photo © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

03/10/2026

🥀 On this day in 1896, iconic British designer, writer and activist William Morris died aged 62.

This striking portrait is based on a photograph first published in 1884. Widely reproduced as a print, it became one of the best-known images of Morris.

📖 The woodcut was later published in printmaker Robert Bryden’s 'Portraits of Men of Letters' (1899), alongside portraits of fellow writers and thinkers including John Ruskin, Robert Browning and Walt Whitman.

🎨 Want to see more of Morris? We're counting down the days until the doors open on ’A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites'.

⚡ Our new exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, textiles, ceramics and rarely seen works from our collection, offering a fresh perspective on one of the world’s most influential thinkers on art, craft and design.

💫 ’A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites’
Opening 23 October 2026

🔗 Visit our website to book your tickets: https://bit.ly/4pvqN7R

🖼️ Robert Bryden, after a photograph by Frederick Hollyer​, William Morris. Woodcut on paper, around 1899. Photo © the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

30/09/2026

🌟 We’ve been preparing something special behind the scenes...

There’s less than a month to go until our new exhibition ’A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites’ opens its doors and we’ve been busy getting ready!

🍃 Designed by William Morris around 1880–81, this woven silk fabric was originally destined for the throne room of St James’s Palace, London. The pattern features oak – a traditional symbol of strength and nationhood.

It wasn’t used at the Palace in the end as, perhaps surprisingly, Morris’ proposals for the furnishings proved too costly! The Oak pattern in crimson and gold was among the most expensive fabrics sold by his Firm.

👑 The commission at St James’s Palace coincided with Morris’ turn to radical politics. He would continue to wrestle with the contradiction of making luxury goods while campaigning for a fairer society, and in private he disliked monarchy.

🎨 Intrigued? Featuring paintings, drawings, textiles, ceramics and rarely seen works from our collection, ‘A Call to Art’ offers a fresh look at one of the most influential movements in art, craft and design.

👀 Keep your eyes peeled for more sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes moments.

🌀 ’A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites’
Opening 23 October 2026

🎟️ Become a Friend for unlimited FREE entry with no need to book. Find out more and join online today.

🎓 18–25 or a student of any age? Know someone who is? Sign up to the Fitz List to get free exhibition tickets, exclusive content and more...

🔗 Book your tickets: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/exhibitions/a-call-to-art-william-morris-and-the-pre-raphaelites

🔍 Curtains and pelmet in Oak pattern, designed by William Morris, 1880–81. Manufactured either by Joshua Oldfield Nicholson, Macclesfield, or by Morris & Co., Merton Abbey, London. Hand- and power-loom jacquard-woven silk damask.

29/09/2026

⚔️ ‘Tonight I make good cheer / Because this battle draweth near’ – William Morris, The Eve of Crecy (from The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems, 1858).

As a boy, British designer and activist William Morris wore home-made armour while riding his pony (as you do!) in Epping Forest in Essex, south east England.

He was knowledgeable about medieval warfare, and inspired by examples like this helmet, he later commissioned a helmet and chainmail from a blacksmith in Oxford. Morris and many of his fellow artists
looked to the past to shape a vision for the future. Medieval tales of King Arthur’s knights inspired them to create romantic images for their own time 💭

His early poetry writing also romanticises combat, including the lines above from 1858 🗡️

Learn more about what lay behind William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites' pioneering designs and romantic storytelling in our exhibition opening next month

🗓️ 'A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites' opens 23 October
🎟️ Book now or join as a Friend for unlimited free entry: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/exhibitions/a-call-to-art-william-morris-and-the-pre-raphaelites
💡 18–25 or a student of any age? Sign up to the Fitz List to get free tickets to our exhibitions and more

🔍 Helmet, unrecorded maker working in Augsburg, South Germany. Steel, iron, brass and leather, about 1580–90. Photos © the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.