Scroll Wallpaper by William Morris: History and Design

Scroll at a glance

The Victoria and Albert Museum holds three specimens of the Scroll wallpaper. Its records name William Morris as the designer and give a production date of about 1872, made in England. The technique is listed simply as print on paper, and the examples were given to the museum by Morris & Co.

Two things the records do not give are a printer's name and a separate first issue or registration date. Those gaps are discussed below.

What the design shows

The V&A describes Scroll as a floral design. Its record also notes an underlay of the 'Branch' pattern (E.467-1919), meaning the Scroll surface sits over, or is printed on the basis of, another Morris pattern held by the museum.

No source in the museum's description identifies particular plants in Scroll, so any naming of flowers here would be guesswork. The design can be described only as floral, with the 'Branch' underlay recorded by the V&A.

Dating Scroll: what the records say and what they do not

The V&A gives a production date of about 1872 for Scroll, made in England. That is the only date attached to the design in the available records. No first issue date or design registration date for Scroll is documented separately from that production date, so the two cannot be distinguished on the present evidence.

There is also no documented statement by Morris about Scroll itself. General comments by Morris on wallpaper design survive, and one is quoted below, but nothing in the records ties a specific remark to this pattern.

How Scroll was made

The V&A lists the materials and techniques of Scroll as print on paper. The record does not name a printer or a specific printing method for this design. Other Morris wallpapers were printed by firms such as Jeffrey & Co., but the evidence for that concerns different patterns, not Scroll, so no printer can be stated here.

The three V&A specimens carry an inscription on the back in ink, giving the title, a number and the price. Such inscriptions are a practical trace of how the firm's wallpapers were sold from pattern books rather than a statement about the printing process.

The pattern book evidence

The surviving Scroll specimens come from 'Volume 1', a pattern book in the V&A containing 25 Morris & Co. patterns (E.441-529-1919). The examples were given by Morris & Co., so the museum's Scroll sheets passed directly from the firm into its collection.

A pattern book of this kind preserves specimens as sold, complete with their inscribed titles, numbers and prices. That makes 'Volume 1' a key record for dating and contextualising designs within the firm's output.

Scroll and Morris's approach to wallpaper

The V&A states that Morris's wallpaper designs are subtle, stylised evocations of natural forms rather than literal transcriptions. That reading comes from the museum's own commentary, and it frames Scroll as part of a body of work in which flowers and foliage are reworked into flat, repeating pattern.

Morris's advice to wallpaper designers, as recorded by the V&A, was to avoid falling into the trap of trying to make your paper look as if it were painted by hand.

Set against that advice, a printed design like Scroll aims to work as wallpaper rather than imitate painting. Scroll sits within the wider run of Morris patterns catalogued in the complete list of Morris wallpaper designs, and the V&A gives it a production date of about 1872, made in England.

Where to see Scroll

Three specimens of the Scroll wallpaper are recorded by the Victoria and Albert Museum, all from the 'Volume 1' pattern book and all given by Morris & Co. They can be identified by the following numbers.

One point of confusion is worth clearing up. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a work titled Scroll of Commission under accession number 49.83. According to the Met's record this is a silk handscroll by an unidentified artist, dated 1862. It is a different object from the Morris wallpaper and shares only the word Scroll in its title. No other museum examples of the Morris wallpaper Scroll appear in the available evidence.

Related Morris wallpapers

Several floral wallpapers by Morris are covered in similar detail on this site. a closer look at Acanthus traces one of the best known botanical designs, while Fruit in detail examines another early pattern. For a later design with a strong floral structure, see Compton in detail.

Reproductions drawn from Morris's original patterns are gathered in the William Morris Original Designs collection, which follows the same design-by-design approach used on this page.