Rose Wallpaper by William Morris: History and Design

What the records actually show about a Rose wallpaper

A wallpaper called Rose cannot be verified. The museum records checked for this page concern four designs that carry the name Rose in other media: the printed cotton Rose and Thistle, the furnishing fabric Tulip and Rose, the woven silk and wool Rose and Lily, and the wallpaper Pink and Rose. None of these is a wallpaper titled Rose on its own.

That matters for anyone researching or buying. Without a design date, an attribution, a printer and an object number, a pattern offered under the name Rose cannot be tied to Morris or to Morris & Co. on documentary evidence. The honest answer to the question of Rose's history is that its history as a wallpaper is not documented in the sources available here.

For designs that are fully documented, the complete list of William Morris wallpaper designs is the reliable starting point. The rest of this page records what can be said with confidence about the rose-named designs that do appear in museum records.

Rose and Thistle: the closest documented design

Rose and Thistle is a printed furnishing fabric, not a wallpaper. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds four examples. One, object number O89651, is printed in dark red on a light red ground and is described as madder-discharged and block-printed cotton. Two further examples, O270972 in red and white and O270974 in white and blue, are described as block-printed cotton.

The V&A records Rose and Thistle as designed by William Morris for Morris & Co., and dates the production to around 1880, placed at Merton Abbey. A separate V&A caption records a furnishing fabric by William Morris, 1881, England, under Museum no. T.634-1919. The attribution to Morris is therefore consistent across the V&A records, but it rests on the Museum's documentation rather than on multiple independent sources.

The four V&A examples were given to the Museum by Morris & Co. in 1919, although they were printed much earlier. They bear stamps reading 'Morris & Company 449 Oxford Street, London W', one with the word 'Regd'. Those stamps tie the surviving pieces to the firm's Oxford Street shop address.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art also holds Rose and Thistle, accession number 23.163.9, in cotton, credited as designed by William Morris. According to the Met's record, the piece measures L. 108 x W. 38 3/8 inches (274.3 x 97.5 cm) and was purchased with the Edward C. Moore Jr. Gift in 1923.

When was Rose and Thistle made? The dating problem

The dating of Rose and Thistle does not resolve neatly. The V&A dates the production to around 1880 but before June 1881, and places it at Merton Abbey. A V&A caption gives 1881. The Metropolitan Museum of Art dates the design as before April 1881, but dates its own printed example to 1917 to 1923.

The printing date is the sharpest conflict. The V&A says its four examples were printed much earlier than the 1919 gift, while the Metropolitan Museum of Art dates its example as printed 1917 to 1923. Both statements come from single institutional records, and neither explains the other. The safest reading is that the design was created around 1880 or 1881, and that examples in the collections were printed at different times, but the sources do not state this directly.

The Merton Abbey context fits the early 1880s dating. Tapestry weaving was established at Merton Abbey when company production was consolidated there in 1881, and Morris appointed John Henry Dearle to manage production. The V&A's placement of Rose and Thistle at Merton Abbey puts it in the same period of consolidated works production.

Other rose-named Morris designs

The name Rose spans several media and more than one designer. The V&A records Tulip and Rose as a furnishing fabric designed by William Morris, manufactured by the Heckmondwike Manufacturing Company, dated 1876, England, Museum no. CIRC.390A-1970.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds Rose and Lily, a woven silk and wool textile, accession number 23.163.14, credited to John Henry Dearle as designer and dated 1893. According to the V&A, Morris appointed Dearle to manage production when tapestry weaving was established at Merton Abbey in 1881, and this attribution shows that a rose-named design of the 1890s is his work rather than Morris's.

There is also a wallpaper called Pink and Rose, which the V&A records as designed by William Morris, published by Morris & Co. and manufactured by Jeffrey & Co., about 1890, Museum no. E.708-1915. It has its own page and is a separate design from anything called Rose.

Roses in Morris's wallpaper practice

If a rose wallpaper existed, it would sit within a well-documented practice. The V&A states that Morris's wallpaper designs centre on plant-based forms and are stylised evocations of natural forms rather than literal transcriptions. A rose, in that practice, would be treated as pattern material rather than as a botanical portrait.

That advice comes from Morris's essay The Lesser Arts of 1877, in which he warned against 'sham-real boughs and flowers'. It explains the stylisation the V&A describes: the flowers in Morris's papers are flattened, repeated and arranged for the wall, not shaded to imitate painting.

The documented wallpaper sequence began with Trellis in 1862, followed by Daisy in 1864 and Fruit in 1865, according to the V&A. Between 1882 and Morris's death in 1896, Morris & Company issued a further 35 new wallpaper designs. A rose design from any point in that span would have company in the pattern books.

Yet wallpaper was never Morris's favourite medium. The V&A notes that from the early 1880s onwards wallpaper became less of a central concern for Morris as his energies focused on textile production at Merton Abbey Mills, and that he still described wallpaper as a 'makeshift' decoration.

The early papers are covered in detail elsewhere on this site: see the story of Trellis, Morris's first wallpaper, and Pimpernel in detail for a later floral design.