Dorset is one of the quieter things in the Cole & Son archive and has stayed in demand for that reason. It is a small classical print, a repeating ornamental figure set at even intervals, drawn with the restraint of an early nineteenth-century paper rather than the density of a high Victorian one.
Because the motif is small and the ground is largely open, the design reads at two distances. Across a room it behaves as a tone, giving the wall a slight grain and taking the flatness out of paint. Close to, the ornament resolves and the drawing shows itself: precise, lightly inked, with a good deal of unprinted ground left around it. Several colourways carry a metallic, which catches obliquely and adds a faint lustre without turning the paper shiny. The spacing is even and unhurried, and nothing in the drawing asks to be looked at twice.
It is a background paper in the best sense, and background papers are harder to find than statements. Hung in a library, a study, a small sitting room or a corridor, it gives the walls something to do while leaving the furniture, the pictures and the curtains to carry the scheme.
