William Morris frequently used tulips in his design for fabric and wallpaper. Here the small wild tulips form a mid ground with a foreground of ribbons of larger peonies intertwining with scrolling stems. Morris’s daughter May wrote how the character of this design was ‘all “Kelmscott” to me: the peony and the wild tulip are two of the richest blossomings of the spring garden at the Manor”. Kelmscott Manor was the Morris family’s country home in Oxfordshire.
Morris registered the design for ‘Wild Tulip’ wallpaper on 21st November 1884. The repeat is 64.8 x 26.7. This example in pale blue is printed down the right edge ‘MORRIS & Co Ltd REGISTERED No 17502’. It was donated to the Gallery by the family of Frederick Richard Leach, a Cambridge based master decorator and stained glass designer who worked for Morris & Co.
