Philip Richard Morris painted two things I never get tired of charting: ordinary people caught in an ordinary moment, and the sea. Both give a stitcher something to hold onto.
He was an English painter, born in 1836 and died in 1902, known for genre and maritime subjects. He also worked on religious paintings influenced by Holman Hunt, and he took commissions for portraits of well-known Victorians. His pictures turn up as prints today under titles like Land Ahoy! from 1864 and Drifting from 1885, which tells you how firmly the water stayed in his work across his career.
What I have charted from him leans toward the human side. The Balloon Seller and Two Young Midshipmen in Sight of Home both sit at Level 4, Challenging, and either one is a sensible place to start if Morris is new to you. The midshipmen piece is the one that gets me every time, two boys and the coast finally in view. The Swing and Feeding the Swans are both Level 5, Big League, and I do not hand those out lightly. Level 5 means long stretches of close shade changes, water and foliage that shift color without ever announcing it, and a lot of counting where a slip of one square will follow you for hours. Stitched on 18-count Aida and framed, though, these are the pieces people stop in front of. If you have been looking for Victorian genre cross stitch with real faces in it rather than pretty scenery, this is your painter.
All four are counted cross stitch patterns, no printed fabric, no shortcuts.
Who else to try: these painters are not connected to Morris by history or training, they simply share shelf space in my Level 5 collections. Have a look at Johann Georg Meyer von Bremen, Charles Joshua Chaplin, George Dunlop R.A. Leslie and Francois Hubert Drouais.
And if it is the painting itself you have fallen for rather than the needle, reproductions are easy to find: Philip Richard Morris art prints.
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