Wallpaper

A bird lands on a wooden trellis, a rose stem bends across it, and the arrangement begins again. In the Metropolitan Museum's specimen of Trellis, the straight bars remain easy to follow beneath the thorny growth. In Jasmine, the supporting structure is harder to find: pale flowering stems wander across a darker mass of leaves until foreground and background seem to exchange places. These are two different answers to the same problem: how to give a wall continuous life without making its repeated units tiresomely obvious. ^[1]

Wallpaper brought William Morris's designs into the architecture of everyday rooms. It also demanded a particular discipline. A printed wall remains flat and exposed; it cannot rearrange its pattern through the folds of a curtain or the changing angle of a chair covering. Morris wanted a surface that rewarded looking while allowing people to stop looking, an accompaniment to domestic life rather than an insistent succession of pictures. His 1881 lecture Some Hints on Pattern-Designing explains the balancing of recognisable growth, orderly construction and visual rest that underlies his papers. ^[2]

The familiar name also covers a history of many hands and several generations. A drawing by Morris, blocks cut by a specialist, paper printed by Jeffrey & Co., a Morris & Co. sample book and a later Sanderson reprint are different things. May Morris and John Henry Dearle contributed designs of their own. Following these distinctions makes the papers more interesting: their beauty belongs both to an inventive arrangement of plants and to the practical decisions that turned it into a repeatable, saleable covering for a room. ^{[3] [4] [5]}

A pattern made for a flat wall

Morris begins his pattern lecture by imagining an undecorated room. He asks what kind of art could make its walls pleasant to live with. A powerful narrative picture may demand an emotional response that people cannot sustain throughout an ordinary day. Ornament has another task. It can call to mind outdoor life and set memory moving without requiring the concentrated attention of a dramatic scene. His plants therefore need to suggest a larger world through chosen forms. Their usefulness does not depend on reproducing an entire garden with botanical precision. ^[2]

The repeat is central to this argument. It is the unit that recurs to extend the pattern across the surface. Morris describes such underlying arrangements as the diagonal branch and the diamond-shaped net. These are frameworks for invention: stems can bend, leaves can overlap, and flowers can distribute weight across the framework. The construction may remain partly visible or be concealed by the forms it supports. What matters is the coherence of the whole arrangement, including the spaces between its more conspicuous motifs. ^[2]

On wallpaper, he advises the designer to conceal the construction sufficiently to discourage people from counting identical units. He also warns against accidental lines that only appear when a design is repeated over a large area. A cluster that seems balanced on a small drawing might produce an unwanted stripe when multiplied across a room. This explains why a convincing isolated flower does not automatically make a successful wallpaper. Its position must work with everything above, below and beside it. Even coverage need not mean that every inch is equally crowded; it means that the distribution feels deliberate. ^[2]

Flatness nevertheless leaves room for intricacy. Morris allows clear light-and-dark relationships, firm coloured outlines and shading made from lines. What he objects to is paper pretending to possess the execution or material richness of another art. An outlined leaf can curve convincingly without appearing to cast a real shadow into the room. His conception of repose also accommodates strong pattern: the eye may follow a branch and then lose it among other branches, finding movement without a single climax. His practical advice ends with an unexpectedly permissive alternative. People who dislike patterned papers should whitewash their walls. Wallpaper was an artistic choice, not a universal obligation. ^[2]

Red House and the first papers

The first designs grew out of the furnishing experiments associated with Red House. The William Morris Gallery relates Trellis to the rose-covered trellises in its garden, and the surviving design records the contributions of both Morris and Philip Webb. Webb supplied the birds. His role matters because these lively creatures are among the pattern's most memorable elements; the work was collaborative from the beginning. ^[6]

The dates reveal the distance between having an idea and issuing a product. The V&A records Trellis as designed in November 1862, registered on 1 February 1864 and manufactured in 1864. A caption giving only 1862 may therefore refer to the conception rather than to the printing of the paper beside it. The Met specimen makes the arrangement particularly legible. Coral-red roses and green leaves cross pale horizontal and vertical bars; blue birds and small insects interrupt the lattice. Lines suggesting wood grain enrich the bars without obscuring their repeated rectangular structure. The garden is translated into a wall-wide order. ^{[7] [1]}

Daisy belongs to this early group, with comparatively simple flowers distributed over a ground. Fruit, also called Pomegranate or Four Fruits, expands the repertoire to branches bearing different fruits and blossoms. The blue-ground Met specimen has large rounded and elongated fruit, sharply defined leaves and a finer, much lighter background pattern. Its branches remain easier to disentangle than the close overlays of Jasmine. These early designs already have internal complexity, but they give their principal forms room to declare themselves. ^[10]

The chronology of Fruit is less settled than a tidy list of first designs suggests. The William Morris Gallery gives 1862 as its design date. The Met catalogues its specimen around 1866, while the V&A records design in 1865–66 and production in 1866. The V&A also explains that the printing-log sequence and evidence associated with J. W. Mackail's notes point in different directions. The disagreement concerns early conception, subsequent development and issue; a single date cannot accurately represent every stage. ^{[10] [11]}

David Rodgers's catalogue of the William Morris Society's designs provides a practical explanation for the early delay. It reports unsuccessful experiments with etched zinc plates before production settled on specialist woodblock printing. The attractive finished papers can conceal this period of trial. The early firm had to discover a workable means of reproducing designs, as well as invent the designs themselves. ^[3]

Rodgers also identifies a quieter interval between the early designs and the new papers of the 1870s. Between 1868 and 1871 the firm offered adaptations of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century wallpapers, using old samples supplied by architects. This was another form of historical study: existing patterns could become practical merchandise, as well as material for a designer's education. Rodgers connects the cautious expansion to the business manager Taylor's concern that production should answer domestic demand. The collection developed through commercial judgment alongside artistic experiment. ^[3]

From drawing to block-printed paper

The working drawing for Chrysanthemum offers unusually clear evidence of how a complicated arrangement was organised. The William Morris Gallery dates this exact sheet, A33, to 1877. Its catalogue describes the unfinished lower portion, where a pencil grid remains visible beneath the developing watercolour. The grid helped Morris repeat and transfer elements by hand. The unfinished area makes the construction of this particular design unusually accessible. ^[8]

The distinction between a drawing and a printing block is equally important. The drawing establishes forms and relationships; a block must convert them into a surface capable of carrying colour and making repeated impressions. Barrett's of Bethnal Green were specialist block cutters associated with this work. The Gallery preserves a carved pearwood block for Larkspur, R253, credited to Barrett's. It brings another skilled trade into view between designer and printer. A single surviving block does not tell us the total number required for every version of the pattern. ^[12]

Jeffrey & Co. printed Morris's historical wallpapers. The V&A describes the distemper used in this production as water-based colour with a thick, chalky effect. This is pigment printing on paper; the mordants, dye baths and discharge sequences involved in printed fabrics belong to a different material process. The paper printer belongs to the manufacturing history alongside the textile workshops at Merton Abbey. ^[13]

Repeated colour printing depends on registration: successive impressions must meet in their intended positions. A leaf's outline, its interior colour and an adjacent flower need to remain aligned as blocks are applied and the paper advances. Increasing the number of printed elements increases the work of maintaining that relationship. The Paris Pimpernel specimen gives a precise example: its catalogue identifies six-colour woodblock printing over a green ground brushed on by hand. That account belongs to that specimen; it does not establish a universal recipe for every Pimpernel colourway. ^[14]

The company's own sales literature explains the sequence in unusually direct terms. A sample-book cover transcribed by the V&A describes each block being charged with pigment and pressed onto paper, with each separate colour dried before the next application. It promotes the resulting body of colour and durability over machine printing. This is a manufacturer's argument for its product, rather than an independent comparison of all printing methods. The same label tells customers where to find machine-printed papers in the books: the firm's commercial offering was broader than an absolute opposition between handwork and machinery might suggest. ^[9]

Design registration is a separate meaning of the same word. It concerns the recorded design, rather than the alignment of impressions during manufacture. Neither kind should be confused with the date a museum acquired a sheet. Keeping these stages apart allows a wallpaper to be understood as both an intellectual design and a manufactured object, with a history that may continue long after the designer's death. ^{[7] [14]}

The denser growth of the 1870s

During the 1870s Morris developed ways of making the ground participate more fully in the design. Rodgers identifies the closely related problem explored in Scroll and Jasmine: a flowing surface pattern placed over an under-pattern. Scroll's background was independent enough to be sold separately as Branch. In Jasmine, Rodgers argues, the two layers are more thoroughly integrated. The contrast shows that density is a matter of relationships between forms, rather than simply the number of leaves on a sheet. ^[3]

In the Met's Jasmine, cream flowers on slender pale-green stems cross broad, cooler leaves and clustered blossoms. The front stems repeatedly pass over the undergrowth, but their direction keeps turning. There is no central bouquet to which everything else is subordinate. Close looking discovers several kinds of growth; a more distant view allows them to settle into a continuous surface. The museum dates the wallpaper to 1872, while the Society's drawing is catalogued 1871–72. Jasmine Trellis, dated 1868–70 in Rodgers's catalogue, is a separate printed furnishing textile. Similar names do not make them one design or one manufacturing history. ^{[1] [3]}

Larkspur shows how design could change between the drawn proposal and the paper. Rodgers notes that a thistle in the Society's drawing was replaced by a larkspur in the printed version. He and the Gallery distinguish a monochrome paper in 1872 from a polychrome issue in 1874. The V&A's record instead has 1874 design and 1875 publication fields, while the current Met record dates its paper 1875. The monochrome and polychrome sequence explains some of the complexity, but does not warrant silently rewriting all the museum dates. ^{[3] [15]}

Colour alters how that growth is read. The pale yellow-and-cream Met Larkspur emphasises the continuous sweep of leaves, with flowers emerging through the same restricted contrast. The Gallery also records polychrome versions, in which colour separates the blossoms from their foliage. Monochrome does not mean a simple pattern: it can draw attention to the pattern's structure by reducing the competition between hues. ^[15]

Marigold makes the point even more strongly. In the blue-and-cream Met sheet, large flowers and long curling leaves lie over a tightly worked growth of smaller flowers and foliage. Narrow pale channels, veins and outlines remain legible within an apparently rich blue field. The cream outer margin also makes the printed area visible as something bounded and applied. The Gallery records wallpaper registration in 1875 but notes evidence suggesting a design around 1873; LACMA explicitly catalogues 1873 design and 1875 registration. This distinction is more informative than choosing one date without saying what it means. ^{[16] [17]}

Marigold also provides a documented bridge between paper and cloth. The Gallery notes that Morris registered it as a chintz later in 1875 and specifically intended the design for both media. This makes it a useful exception to casual assumptions about transfer. His lecture explains why a pattern suited to an exposed wall could seem dull when used on a folded fabric, and why cloth allowed a different approach to colour and construction. Modern availability in several materials cannot, by itself, establish that Morris envisaged those uses. ^{[2] [17]}

Nature, historical pattern and chosen structure

Morris's plant forms grew from observation, but they were selected and reorganised for use. The change from thistle to larkspur, the grid beneath Chrysanthemum and the interlocking layers of Jasmine all reveal decisions between nature and finished paper. In his lecture, he asks for a convincing sense that one member grows from another. A line should have enough strength to appear capable of continuing, even where it ends. This is a principle of designed growth, not a demand that every twig reproduce a specimen collected outdoors. ^{[2] [3] [8]}

Historical ornament gave him ways to organise that growth. His lecture illustrates the diagonal branch and net through medieval patterns and discusses the relationship between colour, outline and flatness. His judgments about different periods and cultures are those of a Victorian designer arguing for his own practice. The useful connection is concrete: older pattern systems offered alternatives to an isolated bouquet or a simulated view through the wall. Morris could study their construction while inventing new arrangements of familiar plants. ^[2]

Pimpernel, designed in 1876, demonstrates how misleading a flower title can be if used as a complete description. The Gallery identifies the large, turning blooms as tulips; the small blue flowers are the namesake pimpernels. Curling leaves and opposed movements establish a more formal balance than the title alone suggests. May Morris later recalled the green version in the Hammersmith dining room. Her 1936 recollection, reproduced by the Gallery, connects a pattern's formal character with a room remembered through long use. ^[18]

The 1876 Wreath must also be identified carefully. The V&A paper has entwined green foliage and blue flowers. The Art Gallery of South Australia's related design, dated about 1876, is gouache and pencil. In the drawing, a coloured central area coexists with surrounding outlines and annotations: it preserves a working stage rather than a finished length of wallpaper. Poppy or Pink and Poppy, a later design dated April 1880, is also sometimes called Wreath. Wreath carpets and furnishing-textile uses of these overlapping names require their own medium and date. A shared title cannot establish that they are the same object. ^{[13] [19] [20]}

The comparison between Willow and Willow Bough offers a particularly clear way to see development without losing identity. The Gallery dates Willow to 1874 and describes its simpler stylised branches against an open ground. Willow Bough followed in 1887. The Met specimen of the latter has curling green leaves that repeatedly change direction along diagonal brown and green branches. The pale ground opens irregular spaces between them. It is denser and more intricately connected, yet still avoids the packed background of Marigold. These are two separately dated designs, not interchangeable names for one familiar green paper. ^{[21] [22]}

Colourways and the evidence of sample books

A colourway is a particular colour scheme for a design. The shape of a flower may remain recognisable while a changed ground, outline or leaf colour alters which parts come forward. Morris discusses this directly in his distinction between figure against ground and colours separated by outlines. Consequently, there is no single colour arrangement that can safely stand for the complete production history of a pattern. ^[2]

The Morris & Co. sample book B46 at the William Morris Gallery makes that variety tangible. Catalogued after 1917, it contains 83 samples representing 42 designs. Willow appears in several tonal combinations, including grey on blue and green on white. Fruit appears on cream, blue, white and a shiny black ground. The book shows that choices were offered within the same named design, with differences in outline, under-pattern and ground as well as conspicuous flower colour. Its date identifies a particular commercial selection, rather than the first availability of every combination. ^[23]

The book also places wallpaper within a furnished room. Its label offers appropriate colours of cretonne and damask to accompany the papers. This is evidence of co-ordination, but not of a rule that walls and curtains should carry identical patterns. The label names designs by William Morris and his associates, presenting a recognisable firm while acknowledging a wider group of designers. Another sample book, BlB90, lists Dearle's Blackberry in three colourways and his Hyacinth as pattern 480. These records preserve practical distinctions that can disappear when every sheet is described only as “William Morris wallpaper.” ^{[23] [24]}

Later specimens need an additional layer of care. The Gallery's Chrysanthemum B172 was printed by Sanderson around 1960. Its purple-and-turquoise scheme is expressly identified as a later recolouring. It cannot prove Morris's original palette in 1877. The V&A's historic E.802-1915 specimen instead records pale flowers, small gold foliage and a grey ground. The comparison reveals change within a continuing design. ^{[25] [26]}

A 1964 Sanderson pattern book is similarly valuable as a record of revival and adaptation. Its entry for May Morris's Horn Poppy distinguishes its salmon-pink scheme from an earlier colourway. Colour history therefore involves preservation and change at once. An original block may retain a shape through several generations of printing while a new arrangement of colours gives that shape a different presence. ^[27]

Living with pattern

Wallpaper is encountered across walls, around corners and behind furniture. A small sample makes individual flowers easy to examine, but it cannot by itself reproduce that architectural experience. Morris's concern with accidental lines follows from this difference of scale. His advice to avoid combining several wallpaper patterns within a single room also belongs to his larger concern for repose. It asks the designer and inhabitant to consider how much competing ornament a room can sustain. ^[2]

Documented rooms show that the answer varied. The V&A describes Morris papers used at the artist Edward Linley Sambourne's 18 Stafford Terrace from 1875 and, in the early 1880s, at Castle Howard. The latter brought richly coloured papers into eighteenth-century interiors. May's recollection of Pimpernel in the Hammersmith dining room likewise describes the pattern among pictures and other possessions. These were surfaces within occupied ensembles, not blank display panels reserved for an isolated design. ^{[18] [28]}

Scale could become a point of disagreement. The V&A records criticism of Morris's large patterns as unsuitable for ordinary interiors, alongside Morris's own willingness to use large designs in smaller rooms. His St James's commission demonstrates the ambition possible at the other extreme: the design required 68 printing blocks and extended across two paper widths. That number belongs to St James's, not to an imagined standard Morris block set. The variety of scale complicates the idea that his wallpaper had one uniform domestic effect. ^[28]

The expansion of his reputation also depended on buyers, decorators and publications. Rodgers identifies artistic purchasers of Fruit and its appearance in George du Maurier's satirical images. The V&A traces growing acceptance through domestic design advice. Admiration was never unanimous, and specialist hand printing made these papers costly for many households. Morris's hope that good decorative art should become widely available coexisted with the expense of the actual product. The gap is part of the history of the business, rather than a reason to ignore either the aspiration or the skilled labour. ^{[2] [3] [28]}

May Morris, Dearle and a continuing collection

The Morris & Co. name should open an inquiry into authorship. Horn Poppy was designed by May Morris around 1885. The Gallery's unused roll B155 records Jeffrey as manufacturer and Morris & Co. as retailer, while another fragment was recovered during redecoration at Leybourne House in Surrey. The dotted background and horned poppy flowers belong to May's work within the company's collection. Her separate professional identity matters as much as the continuity of the firm's visual language. ^[4]

Blackberry and Hyacinth are by John Henry Dearle. The V&A dates three Blackberry specimens to 1903; the Gallery dates the Hyacinth design approximately 1900–12. Both therefore belong to the company's life after William's death in 1896. The Gallery describes Hyacinth's clear outlines and ogee construction, the connected curves that organise its repeat. These are substantive design decisions made by Dearle, even where the paper remains recognisably part of the Morris & Co. range. ^{[9] [5]}

Lesley Baker argues that Dearle's contribution has been obscured by the commercial force of the founder's name and by judgments that treat the later firm as an inevitable decline. Her account asks that continuation be assessed through individual works and professional practice. The surviving sample books reinforce the need for that attention: a single collection contains William's designs, May's designs and Dearle's designs, with colourways and pattern numbers that helped the business sell them together. Brand continuity does not remove differences of authorship. ^{[24] [29]}

The objects also carry continuity beyond the company's closure in 1940, when Sanderson acquired the wallpaper blocks. The Gallery's Hyacinth B101 was printed from original Morris & Co. blocks in 1968. Its reverse bears a Sanderson colourway number and a price; those inscriptions describe a later commercial life, not the date of Dearle's original invention. A surviving sheet can therefore preserve an old repeat, a new printing, a selected palette and a later retail offer. Reading all four together brings the printed surface back into history. ^[5]