Sunflower Wallpaper by William Morris: History and Design

Sunflower at a glance: date, designer and maker

The Victoria and Albert Museum's record for the Sunflower specimen O248657 gives a primary date of 07/01/1879 and a production date of 1879. The same record lists William Morris as the designer and states that the paper was printed by Jeffery & Co. for Morris & Co. The V&A's caption for the design agrees on the year, crediting William Morris as designer and Jeffrey & Co. as manufacturer and printer in England, 1879.

One detail differs between the two V&A sources: the object record spells the printer's name Jeffery & Co., while the caption uses Jeffrey & Co. The full 07/01/1879 date appears only in the object record, and the museum does not explain in the records used here whether that date marks the design, the printing or the cataloguing. The safest statement is that the V&A dates the wallpaper to 1879.

The technique is recorded precisely. The specimen is block-printed in distemper colour on paper, which means the pattern was applied by hand from wooden blocks using a glue-based paint suited to wall hangings.

What the pattern shows: sunflowers and grape vines

The V&A describes specimen O248657 as a symmetrical, formalised pattern of sunflowers and grape vines with fruit. That is the extent of the secure identification: the record names the sunflowers and the vines, and no further botanical breakdown appears in the evidence used for this page.

Symmetry and formalisation are worth pausing on. The record does not describe a naturalistic garden scene but a pattern organised around repeated, stylised plant forms. That places Sunflower firmly within the V&A's account of Morris's wallpapers, which, the museum states, centre on plant-based forms, whether naturalistic or flatter and more formalised.

According to the V&A's own description, Morris's designs are subtle, stylised evocations of natural forms rather than literal transcriptions. Applied to Sunflower, that reading suggests the sunflowers and vines were reshaped to serve the repeat, not copied from life. The motif of trained fruiting vines appears in other Morris patterns of the period as well, such as Pimpernel, where the plants are likewise arranged to build the composition.

No symbolism is attached to the sunflower in the records used here, so none is claimed. What can be said is purely visual: a formalised, symmetrical arrangement of sunflowers and grape vines carrying fruit.

How the paper was made: block printing in distemper

The V&A records the O248657 specimen as block-printed in distemper colour on paper. The records used here do not describe the printing process for this paper in any further detail.

The specimen carries its own documentary value. The V&A notes that it is inscribed on the back in ink with its title, number and price, and that it was given to the museum by Morris & Co. Those inscriptions are why the design can be named, dated and priced with confidence today.

The specimen belongs to Volume 1, a pattern book in the V&A containing 25 Morris & Co. patterns from 1862 to 1881 under the reference E.441-529-1919. Sunflower is one of the specimens in that pattern book.

Details of the workforce and working methods at Jeffery & Co. for this particular paper are not covered in the records used here, so the printing process can only be described in the terms the museum record allows.

Wallpaper in Morris's firm: where Sunflower sits

Sunflower belongs to a mature phase of Morris's wallpaper production. The V&A records that in the early 1860s Morris made wallpaper one of the first things his new interior decorations company put into serial production. According to the museum's chronology, the first paper he designed was Trellis in 1862, followed by Daisy in 1864 and Fruit in 1865.

The V&A records that between 1882 and Morris's death in 1896, Morris & Company issued a further 35 new wallpaper designs. Sunflower, dated 1879 in the museum's records, belongs to the period before that later group of papers.

The V&A also 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. Tapestry weaving was established there when company production was consolidated in 1881, and Morris appointed John Henry Dearle to manage production. In 1885 he stepped away from direct involvement with embroidery, putting May Morris in charge. Sunflower thus belongs to the years just before that shift in the firm's centre of gravity.

Morris's approach to wallpaper design

Morris wrote about wallpaper as a category with some ambivalence. The V&A records that he described wallpaper as a makeshift decoration and preferred woven textile hangings for the walls of his own home. Sunflower, dated 1879 in the V&A's records, can be read in that light: a commercial product Morris took seriously as a designer even while rating wallpaper below woven cloth.

In his essay The Lesser Arts of 1877, Morris warned against sham-real boughs and flowers in wall decoration.

That advice shapes how Sunflower looks. The V&A's description of the pattern as formalised fits the principle Morris stated: the flowers should read as pattern, not as a painted imitation of a garden. Sunflower's symmetrical arrangement of sunflowers and vines does exactly that, keeping the plants flat and ordered within the repeat rather than shaded into illusion.

May Morris gave an account of her father's working method that helps explain the structure of papers like this one. Writing of his designs for chintzes and papers, she observed:

Thought in mass rather than line is a fair description of Sunflower's effect. The V&A's reading of Morris's designs as subtle, stylised evocations of natural forms, attributed to the museum, matches what the pattern shows: plant shapes simplified and arranged for overall balance across the wall.

The three V&A specimens

The V&A holds three Sunflower wallpaper specimens in its records. All three are dated 07/01/1879 and attributed to William Morris as designer. The best documented is O248657, which the museum describes as a symmetrical, formalised pattern of sunflowers and grape vines with fruit, block-printed in distemper colour on paper, inscribed on the back with title, number and price, and given by Morris & Co.

No other museum holdings of Sunflower are documented in the records used for this page. The three V&A specimens are the only examples that can be cited here with institution and object number.

What the records do not settle

Several questions often asked about Sunflower cannot be answered from the evidence used here, and it is better to say so than to guess. The list below sets out the main gaps.

Points the available records leave open:

• The printer's spelling. The V&A object record says Jeffery & Co., while the V&A caption says Jeffrey & Co. Both refer to the same firm, but the records do not resolve the spelling.
• The exact meaning of 07/01/1879. The V&A record gives this as the primary date for O248657, O248655 and O248654, but the museum does not explain whether it marks the design, the printing or the cataloguing. Only the production year 1879 is stated plainly in the V&A's records.
• The first issue or registration date of Sunflower as distinct from the production date. No evidence for a separate first-issue date is present in the V&A records used here.
• Any involvement of John Henry Dearle. No evidence addresses Dearle in connection with Sunflower, so no statement about his role can be made.
• Any independent published assessment of the attribution beyond the V&A's own records. The attribution to William Morris rests on the V&A object record and the V&A caption alone.
• Any documented statement by Morris specifically about Sunflower. The Morris quotations that survive in the records concern wallpaper design in general, not this pattern.
• Later reissues of Sunflower. No evidence on reissues is present, so none can be described.
• Botanical identification beyond the V&A's wording. The record names sunflowers and grape vines with fruit and nothing more; any further plant list would be guesswork.

For buyers, the practical consequence is simple. Any account of Sunflower that gives a precise first-issue date, a Dearle connection or a documented reissue history is going beyond what the museum records cited here support.

Living with Sunflower today

Original 1879 specimens survive only in museum collections, the V&A's three documented examples among them. For most people, the way to live with the pattern is through reproduction prints. When buying, it is worth checking how a seller classifies its goods: faithful prints of a named Morris design, and designs attributed to Morris whose identity has not been established, are different things.

One example of the second category in our shop is a design drawing in blue of a sunflower pattern attributed to William Morris. Its record leaves the design name unidentified, so it is described by what it shows rather than given a title from the Morris & Co. pattern books.