Rug

This hand-knotted wool rug was designed by Marion Dorn (1896-1964) for the Wilton Royal Carpet Factory about 1934. The rug was made for a flat in Wells Coates's modernist Embassy Court apartments in Brighton. It is also similar to the carpet that Dorn designed for Syrie Maugham's famous 'all-white living room'. Marion Dorn came to England from San Francisco in the early 1920s. By the mid 1930s she was acclaimed as a leading freelance textile designer. She carried out commissions for the London hotels Claridge's and the Savoy, and for the ships Orion and the Queen Mary . In 1934 Dorn established her own firm in Bond Street. Her career was less successful after she returned to America in 1940.

Rug · Salisbury · ca. 1934. Hand-knotted woollen pile. By Marion Dorn. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.