The camellia is a flower that looks manufactured. Camellia japonica opens in an almost geometric spiral of petals, held against leaves so dark and glossy they seem lacquered, and the plant flowers in the depths of winter when nothing else does. An archive print was reworked to bring the botany closer to the real species, and the improvement shows in the leaves above all.
What was kept from the original is the ground. The flowers sit on a crackled glaze, the fine network of fissures found on old ceramic, so the design carries two textures at once: the smooth, waxy surface of the plant and the aged surface behind it. That contrast is what gives an otherwise straightforward floral its depth, and it is the reason the design survives being seen close up.
It hangs on a half drop with a 61 cm repeat on a 0.52 m roll, distributing the blooms across the wall so no vertical file of flowers appears. It suits a bedroom, a small drawing room or a dressing room, and it is better used through a whole room than on one wall. Against painted furniture, plain matting and simple curtains it reads as a printed cotton rather than as wallpaper.
