Cole & Son | Tile Toile - Gilded

The gilded version of Tile Toile is printed on mica, and that changes the design more than a recolouring would. Mica is a mineral ground, finely ground particles laid across the paper that catch and return light rather than absorbing it, so the surface behaves like a very fine metallic wash and shifts continuously as you move through the room or as the daylight turns.

Beneath that surface the design is unchanged: a grid of tiles, each carrying a still life drawn from the landscapes of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto, in the manner of traditional Japanese wall painting, with the individual scenes assembling into one continuous account of the historic gardens when the wall is seen whole. The fine linework stays the constant. The mica supplies the depth.

What this asks of a room is light it can work with. In a dining room lit by candles and low lamps it comes alive and the ground reads as burnished; under flat overhead light it settles down and behaves almost as a plain. Used across four walls it is enveloping rather than loud, which is the useful property of a metallic ground, since the shine is in the surface rather than in the drawing.