About this pattern
Willow Bough was first issued as a wallpaper by William Morris in 1887. His daughter, May Morris, later wrote about the country walk with her father that gave him the idea, and he drew the leaves from life. Willow was a favorite motif, and he owned a herbal printed in 1597 with a woodcut of a willow branch. One original coloring, green leaves on a pale blue ground, is in the V&A (E.558-1919).
This green version layers sage, moss and bottle-green leaves on russet boughs that arch and cross over ivory. The leaves are packed so tightly that from the doorway the wall reads as a thicket of real foliage. In a garden room it carries the planting straight indoors. Behind bookshelves in a study it gives the spines a leafy backdrop, and on a long landing the unbroken leaves make the stairs feel like a country lane.
See all William Morris wallpaper designs