This charming frieze doubles as an overview of women’s fashion from the period 1700-1900. It features nine women grouped into trios separated by a curvilinear motif of a flowering vine. On the far left, a woman in simple colonial dress stands next to a woman in mid-eighteenth-century and a woman in late-eighteenth-century garb. The next...

This paper attributed to the wallpaper manufacturer Delicourt depicts the Roman goddess Juno and would have been part of a set of panels that featured members of the Roman pantheon. The accompanying panels would have likely shown Juno’s husband Jupiter as well as two or three other gods, and the whole set would possibly have...

This beautiful sidewall was one of several designed by Kate Faulkner in the 1880s for the wallpaper company Jeffrey & Co. A member of the Arts and Crafts Movement, her pattern reflects the movement’s interest in simple yet pleasing color schemes and motifs drawn from native British wildflowers. These qualities are also typical of Faulkner’s...

In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. This wallpaper delights with its lively motifs of birds and plants and playful stylization. The bright colors and presence of nature injects an otherwise strongly geometric and simplified rendition of an urban landscape with a cheerful energy....

In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. This floral paper stuns with its bright warm colors and energetically-rendered flowers. The Cooper Hewitt has three other colorways of this particular design, each equally eye-catching and bold. This particular paper, though printed by a New York-based...

This beautiful sidewall tile by Marcel Wanders overwhelms with its variety of details. The pattern features layers of circular motifs, snowflakes, stars, and dots on a complex floral curvilinear design. When the tile is repeated along a wall as intended, the overall effect is dazzling and makes the wall seem made of lace. This effect...

On this sidewall, strange enormous flowers drawn in blue are scattered on a green ground. Their tortuous curling stems are highlighted in bright orange and yellow. It is these bright highlights that catch our eyes first, so that our first thought is that what we are seeing is a purely abstract paper of swirling forms....

This delightful sidewall for a nursery is the work of Dorothy Hilton, a late Victorian designer of which sadly little is known. She was based in Birmingham and had a sister Agnes who was also a designer. Articles in the Studio record that she exhibited at the 1899 National Competition of the South Kensington schools...

Can anyone today imagine a time when there was no such thing as the “teenager”? Surprisingly, it wasn’t that long ago that the “teenage years” were not considered a distinct stage of life. The words “teenage” and “teenager” were not invented until the 1920s, and it was only around this time that people noticed that...