A tile from the Dreamwold estate, circa 1902

Addison LeBoutillier's relationship with the Grueby Faience Company began in 1900, when he began providing Grueby with illustrations and designs for letterhead and advertisements as a freelance graphic designer. His relationship with the firm progressed as he quickly began providing tile designs, and in April of 1903 he formally joined Grueby as Director of Design.
LeBoutillier designed the present tile's Archaic-Greek inspired motif for a frieze installed in a bathroom at Dreamwold, a 210-acre estate built in 1902 for Boston stock promoter, Thomas W. Lawson, in a section of Scituate, Massachusetts called 'Egypt'. The Grueby firm provided the estate with tiles to decorate several bathrooms, a conservatory and fireplaces in all the major rooms. The various tile designs, many of which were also designed by LeBoutillier, incorporated motifs including waterlilies, tulips, turtles, tall ships and imitation of Japanese cloisonné metalwork. The Dreamwold tiles attracted acclaim and were the subject of an enthusiastic article accompanied by four pages of photographs, including an illustration of the horse motif in situ, in the October 1902 issue of The Brickbuilder. The photos appearing in The Brickbuilder were published again two years later in an editorial in The International Studio, the accompanying article specifying that Lawson, having an interest in horses, 'gave the idea to the artist to carry out' himself.
A frieze of six Dreamwold tiles bearing this motif were sold at Rago Auctions, Lambertville, 20 June 2020, lot 106. Previously, a pair was sold at Rago Auctions, Lambertville, 29 September 2007, lot 154. For a detailed discussion of Grueby's work at Dreamwold, see S.J. Montgomery, The Ceramics of William J. Grueby: the Spirit of the New Idea in Artistic Handicraft, Lambertville, 1993, pp. 59-62.