The sunflower motif is the use of the sunflower as an ornamental device in architecture and the decorative arts. It is most closely associated with the Aesthetic Movement of the 1870s and 1880s in Britain, when the flower became an emblem of artistic taste, appearing on everything from buildings and fire grates to textiles, wallpaper, ceramics and furniture.
Aesthetic designers admired the sunflower for its bold, stylised geometry and its simple, natural beauty, and it was popularised by the writer Oscar Wilde, who was famously caricatured holding one. Sunflowers were moulded in terracotta and brick on Queen Anne Revival houses, painted on tiles and pottery, and stencilled on interior walls. One of the best-known examples is the cast-iron sunflower andiron designed by Thomas Jeckyll and produced by the Norwich firm of Barnard, Bishop and Barnards, which also made sunflower railings and gates. The motif appears too in Arts and Crafts metalwork, embroidery and William De Morgan pottery. Pieces featuring sunflowers are popular with collectors of Aesthetic Movement design, and authentic period examples should be distinguished from later reproductions, particularly in cast iron.
