Design for 'St. James' wallpaper

Morris designed this wallpaper especially for the Grand Staircase at St James’s Palace. It was personally approved by Queen Victoria in November 1880. Despite Morris’s reservations about the Royal Family (he disliked the Queen, and was disrespectful about her in his private correspondence), this represented an extremely prestigious commission for Morris & Co., and Morris clearly worked hard on this design, shown through the repeated pencil reworkings.

In comparison with some of Morris’s more modest, domestic patterns, this design is monumental in scale, with large acanthus leaves and flowers arranged against a relatively plain ground. Each vertical repeat is 119.4cm and sixty-eight blocks were needed to create the paper, which was produced by the Islington-based company Jeffrey & Co. Following its use in the royal residence, this pattern was also made commercially available through Morris & Co.’s catalogue.