Chrysanthemum sprays

This is a design for a wallpaper by the Silver Studio in 1892. The design features chrysanthemum sprays in green and terracotta colours, on a neutral ground. Many new plants, including chrysanthemums, were introduced into Britain from Japan in the late 1800s. The Silver Studio took new and – to Western eyes – unfamiliar flowers, but depicted them in conventional Western ways. This design for a wallpaper shows chrysanthemums drawn in a naturalistic way in the tradition of English chintzes, so that it seems both exotic and suburban at the same time.