Zerzura is derived from the mythical city whose name is usually translated as the oasis of little birds, and the paper takes that as licence to put birds where they would not normally be. The design was developed from an old archive document trail, a classic chintz of full-blown flowers, into which Martyn Lawrence Bullard has introduced contemporary cockatoos in full plumage, which is not a bird any English chintz ever contained.
Everything is built from line. The flowers and the birds are described by intricate hatched drawing rather than by areas of colour, so the whole design has the raised, worked quality of embroidery seen at close range, and the ground shows through the pattern the way linen shows through silk thread. That gives a fairly opulent design a lightness it would not have if the shapes were solid.
It hangs with a half drop on a 0.52 m roll with a 64 cm repeat, so alternate lengths are offset and the trailing stems interlock rather than forming horizontal bands. Rooms with some drama in them suit it: a principal bedroom, a dressing room, a small drawing room, a dining room used in the evening. It takes lacquer, mirror, fringed shades and layered rugs, and it is entirely at home being the loudest thing in the room.
