Cole & Son | Letaba March Grasscloth

The Letaba is a tributary of the Olifants, and the design imagines the walk down to it: a procession of animals moving in one direction across the wall, monkeys and leopards and cheetahs among giraffes, with elephants carrying the weight of it. The elephants are the giveaway that this is not natural history. Their ears and hides bear applied ornament in the manner of Zulu beadwork, an artwork set inside the larger one.

On grasscloth the whole thing changes register. The woven fibre breaks the light unevenly across the surface, so the parade appears to move through dappled shade rather than across flat paper, and the natural material sits comfortably with a subject drawn from the bush. Variation between rolls is inherent to grasscloth and reads here as atmosphere.

It is a large design on a wide 0.85 m roll with a 113.4 cm straight repeat, so it needs a long wall or a whole room to make sense of its scale. This base is printed to order with a lead time of three to four weeks, which is worth allowing for early in a programme. A dining room or a broad stair hall will take it best. The same design is offered on a non-woven base, where the drawing reads crisper and the surface flatter.