William Morris's Horn Poppy Wallpaper Explained

Horn Poppy at a glance

The facts in the table above are drawn from the V&A's object records for Horn Poppy.

What the pattern shows

The V&A describes Horn Poppy as hand printed wallpaper depicting the horn poppy. The pattern book specimen is described as a design of poppy flowers and foliage. That is the secure description: a flowering plant, its blooms and its leaves, arranged as a wallpaper pattern.

Nothing in the records ties the design to a symbolic meaning, and none is offered here. The plant itself, the horn poppy or sea poppy, gives the design its name, and the museum's description of poppy flowers and foliage is the clearest account of what the printed surface shows.

Who designed Horn Poppy

The V&A records May Morris as designer on all three Horn Poppy records. On the wallpaper O1105226 she is given as designer of the surface design, and the two pattern book specimens carry the same attribution, with Morris & Co. as publisher and Jeffrey & Co. as printer. The title's common association with William Morris is well known, but the evidence supplied for this page does not support attributing the design to him; it supports the May Morris attribution recorded by the museum.

That attribution rests on the V&A records alone in the material available here. No independent source by another Morris scholar appears in the evidence for this page, so the attribution should be read as a museum record rather than a settled scholarly consensus.

The date makes the attribution credible in context. According to the V&A, in 1885 Morris stepped away from direct involvement with embroidery, putting May, aged just 23, in charge of that part of the business. The museum likewise records that May Morris took responsibility for the embroidery side of her father's business in 1885, aged 23. A design recorded under her name in that same year fits a period when she was already working within the firm.

For a fuller account of one documented wallpaper design associated with May Morris, see our closer look at her Honeysuckle wallpaper. For contrast, the firm's later wallpapers include designs by John Henry Dearle, gathered in our Dearle design list.

The dates on the records

The V&A gives a production date of 1885 for the wallpaper O1105226, made in England.

What that September date marks is not stated in the records available here. It may refer to the design, to the printing, or to the assembly of the pattern book itself; the excerpts do not say which. For that reason this page refers to it as the date on the V&A's specimen records rather than as the design date or the first issue date.

The two dates do not conflict.

How it was printed

The V&A lists the materials and techniques of the wallpaper O1105226 as hand block printing. The two specimens are recorded differently, as colour block print on paper. Both descriptions point to block printing as the method, expressed at different levels of detail.

The printer is named on the V&A's specimen records: Jeffrey & Co., with Morris & Co. as publisher. The relationship between the O1105226 wallpaper record and the two specimens, including whether they represent the same printing campaign, is not explained in the available records, and this page does not speculate about it.

The pattern book specimens and where they survive

Three V&A object records document Horn Poppy. Each carries May Morris as primary maker. The table below lists them with their museum numbers.

The two specimens, O248896 and O248903, come from a pattern book of Morris & Co. patterns with the V&A reference E.633-858-1915. The O248896 specimen is inscribed on the back in ink with its title, number and price, which is how pattern book samples were kept as working records.

Both specimens were given to the V&A by Mr Allan F. Vigers. The wider May Morris connection with the museum continued after her death: according to the V&A, she bequeathed a sizeable collection of her father's work on her death in 1938, including 30 designs for wallpaper, textiles and embroidery.

No examples in other museums, and no information about later reissues, appear in the evidence for this page, so none are claimed here.

Horn Poppy and May Morris's design work

Horn Poppy belongs to the group of Morris & Co. wallpaper work recorded under May Morris's name. All three V&A records carry her as designer or primary maker, with Morris & Co. as publisher and Jeffrey & Co. as printer, which makes it one of the wallpaper designs securely documented in connection with her within the material available here.

Honeysuckle is the other wallpaper design in this group treated in detail on this site. Comparing the two museum records side by side gives a practical sense of how May Morris's wallpaper work is documented, and where the records are precise and where they are silent.