Victorian Wallpaper

Choosing Victorian wallpaper

Where it works

Victorian pattern was made for rooms with tall windows, deep skirting and furniture that stays put, and it still likes them: a dining room, a front parlour, a study, and a bedroom with a proper headboard. On a black ground, Midnight Bouquet and Painted Bouquet turn a dining room into a box of lit flowers; give them lamps rather than spotlights. Cream and grey grounds, Speckled Sparrow or Plum Tapestry, take the same density into a bedroom or a landing without closing it in.

Picking between the designs

The collection splits three ways. Bouquets are the painterly group, blooms lit from one side over black or burgundy: Midnight Bouquet, Painted Bouquet, Wine Chrysanthemum, Burgundy Sunflower. Damasks are the mirrored group, where the repeat is meant to show: Claret Damask, Leafy Damask, Teal Damask and Silver Damask, with Sage Camellia and Rose Medallion close behind. Birds are the third: Black Parrot at the centre of coral and magenta blooms, Butterfly Peony with its striped butterflies on olive-taupe, Speckled Sparrow, Bluebird Fence. If you want the Victorian weight with less colour, White Anemone keeps the black ground and pale foliage and drops the reds.

Related

The mirrored designs are also in damask wallpaper, the dark bouquets in moody floral wallpaper, and the parrot and sparrows in bird wallpaper. For the era's more-is-more logic, read What is Victorian maximalism.