Cole & Son | Uccelli

Uccelli means birds, and it began as a set of folding screens: vividly coloured birds of every species perched along sparse branches. Fornasetti's screens were made to be read at close range as objects, and something of that survives in the wallcovering, where the detail is finer than a wall usually asks for and it repays standing near it.

The composition is deliberately spare. Branches divide the panel, the birds sit at intervals along them, and the ground between is left open. That emptiness is what makes the design work at scale. Used in repeat across a room it becomes an aviary rich in detail, but it never crowds, because most of the surface stays quiet.

Each roll contains two drops and makes a complete decorative panel 104 cm wide by 240 cm high, with a straight match. Cole & Son have added 40 cm of extra ground colour above the trellis so the panel can be trimmed from the top to the exact height of the wall, a considerate piece of design and worth flagging to whoever hangs it. Used as a single panel it works as a picture would, on one wall of a dressing room or a bedroom. Used in repeat it makes a whole room, and suits a dining room or a small drawing room with dark furniture and good lamps.