# Strawberry Thief

- By: William Morris (British, 1834–1896)
- Date: c 1936
- Medium: plain weave cotton, discharge printed
- Classification: Textile
- Dimensions: Overall: 88.3 x 99.1 cm (34 3/4 x 39 in.)
- Culture: England, Merton Abbey, 20th century
- Credit line: Gift of Mrs. Henry Chisholm
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1937.696)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1937.696/1937.696_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Perhaps the most recognizable of Morris’s textiles, Strawberry Thief celebrates the thrushes in Kelmscott Manor’s garden. May Morris remarked, “You can picture my Father going out in the early morning and watching the rascally thrushes at work on the fruit beds and telling the gardener who growls, ‘I’d like to wring their necks!’ that no bird in the garden must be touched.” With Strawberry Thief, Morris perfected the indigo-discharge process, which required the entire cloth to be dyed blue before it was bleached and block printed, in this case with more colors than any of his other textiles.