Cole & Son | Royal Jardiniere

Royal Jardiniere comes out of Hampton Court Palace. The King's Little Bedchamber, painted by Antonio Verrio for William III, contains orange trees standing in ornate pedestals against pink marble, and the paper takes those elements and sets them into a symmetrical repeat. Verrio's painted schemes at Hampton Court are among the most complete Baroque interiors in England.

The structure is formal, a tree, a pedestal and a mirrored arrangement, which gives the design a classical steadiness. The subject is less ceremonial than it looks. William and Mary collected rare plants from across the world, known at court as the Exoticks, and the orange tree carries a second meaning as the emblem of William's own House of Orange. The drawing holds both registers, botanical record and heraldic intent, within one motif.

Produced with Historic Royal Palaces, it is a design with a documented source rather than an invented history, and it behaves accordingly: architectural, upright and straightforward to live with. Rooms with some formality of their own suit it best, a panelled study, a dining room, a hall with good joinery, where a repeating classical motif is read as part of the architecture rather than applied to it. Only one colouring is produced, which is unusual and suits it: this is a specific room recorded, not a motif offered in variations.