Willow Bough

William Morris

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

William Morris designed forty-one wallpapers and five ceiling papers, working from 1862 with Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company and from 1875 with Morris & Company. "Willow Bough" proved to be one of the company's most enduring patterns with interlaced green willow leaves and brown stems over a cream ground. First produced in 1887, it should be distinguished from the slightly earlier "Willow" (see 39.18.5) of 1885 where the leaves are flatter and less densely arranged. If the elegantly stylized "Willow" communicates a Japanese sensibility, "Willow Bough" offers greater naturalism.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art