The magnolia is a southern American tree, but Magnolia is not drawn in an American manner. The flowers are handled the way an eastern painter would handle blossom, as flat, simplified shapes set on a bare branch, with the branch given as much attention as the flower and a good deal of ground left empty around both.
That treatment suits the subject. A magnolia flowers before it comes into leaf, so the tree in bloom really is a structure of bare wood carrying large blossoms, and the design reproduces that emptiness rather than filling it in. The modelling within each flower is soft and gradual, built in pale washes without a hard outline, which is what keeps a large-scale floral from becoming heavy.
At a 76 cm repeat on a 0.53 m roll this is a big pattern, and the half drop staggers the blooms between drops so they fall diagonally rather than in rows. It wants height. A bedroom with a good ceiling, a landing, a drawing room where there is enough wall to watch the branch structure develop will all take it well; a small low room will crowd it. Plain curtains and simple painted joinery are the right company; anything patterned will crowd the branch.
