Petrouchka is a flock damask, and flock is the oldest trick in wallpaper. Fibres are laid onto adhesive so the pattern stands up from the ground in a short pile, a seventeenth-century method devised to give the look of cut velvet hangings to houses that could not run to the real thing. It remains the only printing process that gives a wall genuine relief.
The pattern itself is a full damask, drawn with the scrolling symmetry the type requires and named, like the Mariinsky designs around it, for the Russian ballet. Because the motif is raised, the wall does not read as a printed one. Light catches the pile and drops into the ground, so the design shifts as you move and comes forward entirely under lamps. Seen flat and in daylight it is far quieter than its reputation suggests.
The colourways are jewel-like and deep rather than pale, which suits both the technique and the subject. Rooms used after dark make the most of it, a dining room, a small library, a stair hall with dark joinery, and it is worth remembering that flock has a nap and does not want scrubbing. Plain heavy textiles are the right company; a second pattern is not.
