Pavo Parade takes its name from the peacock's genus, and the birds are given the full length of the drop, tails trailing behind them down the wall rather than fanned. Those tails carry a gradation from one end to the other, an ombre achieved in the printing, which is a technique Cole & Son developed and have used sparingly ever since.
What lifts it above a straightforward bird paper is the framing. The composition is loosely bounded, so each group of birds sits within an implied panel rather than floating in an open field, and the wall acquires a structure it would not otherwise have. Every colourway is printed with a metallic on a deep ground, so the design stays quiet by day and comes forward under lamplight, the tails catching first and then the framing.
This is a night-time paper. Dining rooms, small drawing rooms, cloakrooms and the walls of a stair suit it, particularly where there is polished timber or gilt to answer the metallic. The 76.2 cm repeat is long, and with a straight match on a 0.52 m roll it pays to plan the first drop around the birds' position on the principal wall. Rolls run to 10 m, and the design belongs to the Pearwood collection.
