Lily was drawn in 1959, at the moment when the large-scale floral entered the modern interior, and it has a fair claim to having established the type. What distinguishes it from the chintzes that preceded it is stylisation: the water lily is reduced to its essential shape, the petals simplified, the modelling taken out. It is a flower described rather than portrayed.
That reduction is why it has lasted. The forms are large and calm, set well apart, and the ground between them matters as much as the flowers themselves. A wall of it reads as composition rather than as decoration, and it holds its own beside modern furniture in a way a more literal floral cannot.
The 76 cm repeat is long and the match is a half drop, which offsets the flowers between drops and gives the pattern a diagonal drift instead of a grid. On a 0.52 m roll that means the setting-out matters; it is worth planning the first drop so the flowers fall well on the principal wall. Bedrooms take it easily, as do drawing rooms with height and good light. It is equally at home against plain plaster and simple curtains, where the shape of the flower can be read without competition.
