Tulip and Rose by William Morris

What Tulip and Rose shows

Tulip and Rose by William Morris is an 1876 textile pattern built around mirrored floral sprays, ruffled rose blossoms, and upward-reaching tulips. The design organizes garden flora into a disciplined, symmetrical repeat that feels orderly yet organic across a wide surface.

At the upper center of each vertical section, large fan-shaped clusters of pale, lobed leaves flare upward against a deep indigo-blue ground. Directly beneath these fan-like crests sit prominent blossoms rendered in a rich terracotta red. These ruffled, cup-shaped roses provide the warmest accents in the palette, drawing your eye to the center of each horizontal grouping.

Below the roses, pairs of wide ivory floral heads open outward with scalloped petals. Curved stems and dense serrated foliage fill the surrounding space, weaving between the larger flower forms. Smaller sprays of ochre and burnt-orange leaves sit lower in the repeat, adding secondary warm highlights against the cooler tones of stone, pale blue, and dark indigo. The composition repeats with bilateral symmetry, creating structured vertical columns across the image.

Who designed it and when

William Morris designed Tulip and Rose in 1876. The design record and the Art Institute of Chicago both date the design to 1876. While several well-known patterns associated with the historical firm were designed by John Henry Dearle, Tulip and Rose is an original work designed by Morris himself.

Morris completed the pattern during the 1870s as he expanded the firm’s textile catalog. You can learn more about his background and methods in our guide to William Morris. To see how this pattern fits alongside his other creations, browse every William Morris design in our library, or view his later 1883 pattern Strawberry Thief.

How it was made and used

Tulip and Rose was created as a textile rather than a wallpaper. The museum example scanned by the Art Institute of Chicago is a woven fabric piece that displays clear horizontal thread ribs across its surface. In the scan, a horizontal seam is visible running across the lower third of the fabric, showing where two woven sections join together.

The firm produced this design for decorative interior furnishings. In a woven textile, individual threads construct each leaf vein, petal edge, and background curve directly in the cloth. The dense arrangement of flowers and foliage ensures full coverage across the surface, giving the fabric a rich and continuous decorative texture.

Colourways

On this site, Tulip and Rose is offered in one colourway: Ivory on Stone. This name is our own descriptive label based on the museum scan, rather than a historical Morris & Co. trade name.

The Ivory on Stone colourway pairs a deep indigo-blue ground with pale stone and ivory foliage. The dark ground sets off the lighter acanthus-like leaves and wide flower heads, while terracotta-red roses and burnt-orange leaf sprays provide warm focal points. The balance of warm red and cool indigo gives this single colourway strong contrast and clarity.

Tulip and Rose as a print

Prints on this site are printed and shipped by ArtsyWall in three formats: Archival Paper, Premium Canvas, and Framed Canvas. Archival Paper provides a flat, fine-art presentation on textured cotton rag paper. Premium Canvas wraps the design around solid wood bars, while Framed Canvas places the canvas inside a wood floating frame. Frame finishes include black, white, gold, silver, walnut, and oak. On a wall, the bold indigo background and warm terracotta roses give Tulip and Rose strong presence. The symmetrical layout holds its shape well within a frame, creating an orderly focal point in any room.