De Morgan Foundation

The De Morgan Foundation is a collection without a single home. It brings together the work of a married couple, the painter Evelyn De Morgan and the potter William De Morgan, best known for his lustre-glazed tiles and dishes of the Arts and Crafts movement. It was gathered by Evelyn's sister, the writer Wilhelmina Stirling, who collected so much of their work that in 1931 she moved to Old Battersea House, a Georgian mansion in south-west London, to hold it. The foundation that cares for it was set up in 1970.

From 2002 to 2014 the collection had its own centre in a former library in Wandsworth. Since then it has been shown with partner venues. One is Watts Gallery, the artists' village in Compton, Surrey, which displays De Morgan paintings and pottery. The others are Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton and Cannon Hall near Barnsley.

Among Evelyn's best-known pictures in the collection is Flora, from 1894, a near life-size figure of the Roman goddess of flowers. She stands before a loquat tree, and the painting openly borrows from Botticelli's Primavera and Birth of Venus.