The surprise in Butterflies & Dragonflies is the size. Insects in wallpaper are conventionally small and scattered; these are drawn very large indeed, at a scale that turns a wing into a piece of graphic design and a dragonfly's body into a line drawn across the wall. The archive drawing is precise, with venation, antennae and wing shape all correct, but the scale removes any suggestion of natural history.
They are printed with metallic inks, and at this size that matters. A wing of that area catches light across its whole span, so the insects appear and recede as you move through the room, sometimes almost invisible against the ground and sometimes very present. The grounds themselves are kept quiet, which is the right decision; anything more would make the design impossible to live with.
The half-drop match at a 72 cm repeat scatters them properly, so no two identical insects sit level with one another. On a 0.52 m roll it hangs conventionally. It works in a dressing room, a small drawing room, a dining room or a stairwell, anywhere with enough wall to let the scale register and enough restraint elsewhere to let it be surprising. Hung sparingly, the surprise of the scale survives repeated looking.
