Walter Crane was an artist with a deep belief that everyday objects, including a humble tea cosy, were worthy of good design. He also possessed an incomparable talent in referencing historical styles without directly copying specific precedents. This cosy, attributed to Crane, features the kind of motifs seen in Renaissance design books: symmetrical, with confronting birds, masks, cornucopia, and scrolls arranged along a vertical axis. Crane was one of several artists of renown who prepared designs for the Royal School of Art Needlework, established in 1872 to improve the standard of commercial embroidery and provide suitable employment for educated women. Objects such as this were sold by the school. The use of a single color of thread and flat stitches is in keeping with the philosophy of this school, which held that artistic embroidery should eliminate as much as possible any idea of presenting roundness, variety of surface, light and shadow, or contrasting colors.