Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941) was a prolific designer of wallpapers, textiles, tiles and other decorative media for domestic use. Trained as an architect, Voysey later became a leading designer of wallpaper, textiles and carpets in the Arts and Crafts movement. His aim was to introduce lightness and color into what he perceived as morbid and dreary interiors. He fought hard to campaign against the somber colors en vogue throughout his youth and by the mid-1890s Voysey's work was dominated by flowing patterns incorporating pastel-colored flora and fauna. The present lot's design, with its stags, swans, doves and trees in silhouette is perhaps among his most characteristic of this mindset. The 'Duleek' was conceived as a carpet and manufactured in Alexander Morton's 'Donegal' range, retailed at Liberty's, where it was included in their 'Irish Carpet Exhibition', held at the Grafton Gallery, in Bond Street, London, in 1903. For an example of this design as a carpet in a similar colorway, see Malcolm Haslam, Arts & Crafts Carpets, New York, 1991, p. 125. For an example of this pattern in an airy cotton muslin gauze, see an example at the Victoria & Albert Museum (accession no. T.75-1953).