Iris carries the marks of its own making. The design was originally screen printed, one colour laid over the next, and the small misregistrations that come with that process have been kept rather than tidied away. Leaves overlap fractionally out of true, outlines sit a hair off their fill, and the whole surface has the slight looseness of something made by hand.
The flower gives the design its shape. An iris is architecturally odd, with falls that drop and standards that rise, and that vertical push is what carries the eye up a wall. Around it the leaves are drawn as long blades and set in an immersive repeat, so from a few paces the wall reads as foliage first and flower second. The 72 cm straight repeat is long enough to hold the full height of a plant, which is why the pattern never resolves into an obvious grid.
Named for the Greek goddess of the rainbow, it belongs to the cottage-garden end of the Cole & Son archive, and it hangs well in rooms that have some connection to a garden: a morning room, a bedroom that looks over planting, a landing where a window gives onto trees. On 0.52 m rolls with a straight match, it is forgiving to hang and simple to plan around.
