'Bachelor's Button' wallpaper

This pattern was designed in 1892 and is usually attributed to William Morris. However, as this is towards the end of his life it may have been designed by John Henry Dearle. Dearle was Morris’s highly talented apprentice who later became the Art Director of Morris & Co. following William Morris’s death in 1896.

The pattern is named after the cornflowers it features which were sometimes called bachelor’s buttons. This name comes from folklore where cornflowers were worn by young men when they were in love. If the cornflowers they wore faded too quickly it was a sign that the bachelor’s love was not returned.