Watered Silk is one of the oldest prints Cole & Son hold, dating back over a century and produced by several different techniques across that time. The subject is moire, the rippling watermarked figure produced when two lengths of ribbed silk are pressed together under heat so the ribs flatten unevenly and light is thrown back in waves.
This incarnation uses a fine mother-of-pearl printed ottoman texture to reproduce that effect, which means the shimmer is genuinely in the surface rather than drawn as a highlight. Move past it and the watermark moves too. In flat light it settles into a soft, faintly lustrous plain; in raking light or under lamps it opens up and the wall appears to have a depth it does not have.
Moire has always been the wall finish for rooms that need to look dressed without being patterned: dining rooms, drawing rooms, principal bedrooms, the wall behind a bed or a good pair of curtains. It hangs behind pictures better than almost anything, since there is no repeat for a frame to cut through. Against plain silk or velvet, gilded frames and a well-lit ceiling it does what it has always done, which is to make a room read as considered from the walls outward.
