Cole & Son | Fontainebleau

The tree of life is one of the oldest patterns in the decorative repertoire, arriving in Europe on painted Indian cottons and staying for three centuries. Fontainebleau is a French reading of it, drawn with the palace outside Paris in mind: leafy stems that climb and branch, with exotic birds settled along them at intervals.

The repeat is very large at 123.9 cm on a 0.69 m roll, which is what allows the tree to be a tree rather than a motif. A single drop carries a substantial part of the composition, and the half-drop match interlocks the branches between lengths so the growth appears continuous across the wall. The birds are drawn with more colour and more detail than the foliage around them, so they read as incident within the tree rather than as a second pattern competing with it.

Rooms with height show it properly: a stairwell, a double-height hall, a drawing room with tall windows, a bedroom with a good ceiling. Below picture-rail height in a low room the composition loses its structure. Hang it with restraint elsewhere, on plain floors and with simple curtains, and it does the work of a mural without the commitment of one.