Fritillaries and Snakeshead: A Rare Flower in Morris's Work

The 'Fritillary' wallpaper: what the museum record shows

The V&A holds three wallpaper specimens titled 'Fritillary', with museum numbers O248707, O248708 and O248709. The museum attributes the design to William Morris and dates its production to 1885 in England.

The technique is recorded as a colour woodblock print on paper, the standard printing method for the firm's wallpapers. One design documented across three specimens makes this the clearest surviving trace of the fritillary in Morris's own catalogue of patterns.

The core record, in brief:

• Three specimens, V&A museum numbers O248707, O248708 and O248709
• Attributed to William Morris by the Victoria and Albert Museum
• Produced in 1885 in England, per the V&A's dating
• Colour woodblock print on paper

How the pattern is described

The V&A describes the 'Fritillary' wallpaper as a floral pattern with large flowers and undulating vertical bands of leaves. The flowers rise through a lattice of foliage, with the vertical leaf bands giving the repeat its structure.

One caution belongs here. No supplied source identifies the flowers botanically as fritillaries. The title does that work, and only the title. A reader comparing the pattern against the garden plant should treat the name as the evidence, not the flower's exact form in the print.

The specimens and their provenance

The three specimens come from 'Volume 2', a pattern book the V&A records as containing 27 Morris & Co. patterns. Pattern books of this kind kept samples of the firm's wallpapers together, which is why museum records for individual designs often point back to a single volume.

The specimens were given to the V&A by Morris & Co. itself, so the museum's holding descends directly from the firm's own archive. Each specimen is inscribed on the back in ink with its title, number and price, the firm's own record of how the design was sold.

That inscription matters for anyone studying the pattern. The backs of wallpaper specimens often carry the only surviving trade information, and here the firm recorded the basics of each sale on the object itself.

What remains uncertain

Several questions stay open, and it is more useful to name them than to paper over them.

Open questions around the motif:

• Whether the design depicts actual fritillary flowers, or only bears the name. No supplied source identifies the flower botanically.
• Whether the three specimens are colour variants of a single design. The records list three museum numbers but do not state their relationship.
• The date range of the 'Volume 2' pattern book. The supplied records state only that it contains 27 Morris & Co. patterns and do not establish when it was assembled.

Where fritillaries sit among Morris's flowers

Fritillaries are among the less commonly encountered flowers in Morris's patterns, at least going by what museum records document. Set beside the wallflowers and staples of the firm's output, the motif rests on a narrow base of evidence, and this page keeps to it.

For a wider view of the firm's floral vocabulary, the botanical guide to flowers in Morris designs gathers the documented examples in one place and shows which motifs carry solid records and which rest on names alone.