‘Venetian’ is one of two Morris & Co. wallpaper designs attributed to the Gothic-Revival architect George Frederick Bodley, the other is ‘Queen Anne’. Bodley became acquainted with William Morris in the late 1850s, by the 1860s he was commissioned by his firm to create designs for stained glass and ecclesiastical decoration. The wallpaper is a traditional repeating pattern of flowers and leaves and is based on a historic wallpaper design. Unlike Morris’s wallpaper designs the pattern is on just one plane, with a plain background.
The pattern repeat size is 26.7 x 57.2 cm. Amongst one of the earliest wallpapers produced by Morris, Marshal, Faulkner & Co. the first examples were printed with one colour on a white background, in later years the firm produced the pattern in an ever-increasing number of colourways, including this version in two shades of pink. This example 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. and George Frederick Bodley.
