The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogues are not to my knowledge available online. I went to peruse them in the National Art Library and I was surprised and struck by a familiar composition that features on most of the catalogue covers. It looks so similar to the peasant tapestries, such as the embroidered panel at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Even the 1906 catalogue cover, which was the only one I saw that was different, retains the elements of the tree and symmetry.
This suggests to me that the 'Tree of Life' peasant tapestry composition was not the original idea of Godfrey Blount, but it was influenced perhaps by the design from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, (which maybe was by Walter Crane?) which first seems to appear on the second exhibition catalogue of 1889 or maybe this composition was more in more widespread circulation around 1900 somehow?
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| Embroidered panel by Godfrey Blount, 1896 V&A Museum |
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| Detail from Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue cover, 1890 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1889 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1890 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1893 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1896 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1899 (incorrectly corrected in the National Art Library's photocopy) |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1906 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1910 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1912 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1916 |
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| Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogue, 1926 |
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