Chatterton is built from two things that do not usually appear together: ferns and exotic fruit. The ferns supply the structure, their fronds arching and dividing in the way that made them a Victorian obsession, and the fruit supplies the weight, hanging within the foliage and stopping a design of pure leaf from becoming insubstantial.
It is drawn from the Cole & Son archive and recoloured for contemporary use, and the recolouring is the significant part. The pattern is printed in pale, chalky tones on grounds of stronger colour, which reverses the usual arrangement of a damask and makes the design read as a positive drawing on a coloured field rather than as ornament laid over a pale one. It gives a far cleaner, more graphic result than the original would have had.
Because the drawing is essentially tonal, one pale colour against one ground, it behaves as a textured surface from across a room and only becomes botanical close to. That makes it considerably easier to live with than a full-colour design of the same scale. It suits a dining room, a hall, a landing or a bedroom, and it sits well with painted joinery and plain cloth. It is a good deal more graphic than its archive origins suggest.
