Rousseau is a cartouche design, which is to say the pattern is a series of framed pictures rather than a continuous scene. Within each frame sits a small painted vignette of palm trees and animals; between them lies a craquelure ground, the fine crazing of old glaze. The reference is porcelain, the tableware of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where exotic scenes were set into ornamental borders in exactly this way.
That origin explains the drawing. The vignettes are painted in a single colour over a pale ground in the manner of transferware, and the crackle is drawn rather than simulated, so the wall reads as a glazed surface rather than as paper. Seen from a distance the cartouches form a regular field; close to, each one is a separate small picture. The animals within the frames are handled lightly, more emblem than portrait, which is exactly how they were treated on the china this comes from.
Every colourway follows the same logic of one colour over a pale ground, which keeps the design consistent in weight whichever is chosen. A hall, a cloakroom or a dining room takes it well, and it sits comfortably with painted panelling and old china. Rousseau Border is drawn to run with it where a frieze or a cornice line is wanted.
