Lodden by William Morris

What Lodden shows

Lodden by William Morris presents an intricate arrangement of scrolling foliage, large stylized blooms, and slender twisting stems. The central floral shapes feature pink, feather-edged petals radiating from textured blue seedheads. Surrounding these bold blooms are small five-petaled pink flowers with yellow centers, small blue bell-shaped florets, and pale pink buds with deep crimson interiors.

The stems run diagonally and curve across the surface in sweeping arcs. Thick pink stems bear stitched hatch marks, while thin white ribbons and green tendrils thread behind and over the larger leaves. Green acanthus leaves curl across the composition, accented with vibrant blue undersides and yellow highlights. Crisp black outlines separate every petal and leaf against an ivory or white ground, giving the dense pattern sharp clarity.

Who designed it and when

William Morris designed Lodden in 1884. The pattern was created for production as a printed fabric at Merton Abbey in the United Kingdom. Although Morris employed talented assistants throughout his career, historical museum records list Morris himself as the designer of Lodden.

The design dates from the height of Morris’s textile work at Merton Abbey, which began operating in the early 1880s. A guide to William Morris shows how his hands-on experiments with fabric printing guided the visual structure of his late botanical repeats. Along with famous designs like Strawberry Thief, Lodden demonstrates his mastery of layered organic movement. You can browse every William Morris design in our library to see how Lodden fits into his broader timeline.

How it was made and used

Museum examples of Lodden, such as the textile pieces held in the Cooper Hewitt collection, document the design as a printed textile made on cotton and linen. The fabric was printed at Merton Abbey in 1884 using hand-carved blocks. The print run required multiple impressions to deposit each individual shade of pink, blue, green, and yellow, framed by black boundary lines.

As a printed cotton and linen textile, Lodden was originally intended for furnishing use in domestic interiors. Homeowners used printed chintz fabrics of this weight for drapery, loose furniture covers, and wall hangings. The continuous scroll of the vines allowed the pattern to drape smoothly or lay flat on upholstery without losing its rhythm.

Colourways

This site presents Lodden in the Red on Ivory colourway. This colourway is based on an original 1884 museum specimen preserved at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Red on Ivory features rose-pink and crimson blossoms balanced by deep blue accents and moss green foliage. The stems alternate between dusty pink and ivory white. The background is a clean, natural light ground that allows the black linework and bright floral pigments to stand out cleanly.

Lodden as a print

Lodden is available as a fine art print printed and shipped by ArtsyWall. You can order the design in three formats: Archival Paper, Premium Canvas, and Framed Canvas.

On the wall, Lodden functions as a bold botanical accent. The fine linework of the scrolling stems and leaves looks sharp on Archival Paper, making it suitable for standard framing behind glass. Premium Canvas wraps the dense floral composition around the sides of solid wood bars. If you choose Framed Canvas, a wood floating frame surrounds the canvas with a slight gap, allowing the winding pink and blue florals to emerge cleanly against the wall.