Massingberd Blossom

‘Massingberd Blossom’ (Gunby Hall) c.1905 The wallpaper from which this design is drawn, is most likely of British Edwardian origin, but stylistically is very representative of the era’s passion for oriental design, which – in a time of pre-modern artistic sensibility – was seen to retain a close connection to nature, simplicity and harmony. The trailing blossom and repeating birds are elements commonly found in early, hand-painted chinoiserie, and the use of traditional surface printing retains a tactile quality that subtly offers more to the discerning eye than a conventionally mass-produced paper. It once adorned the walls of the Grey Room at Gunby Hall in Lincolnshire, a large country house built some 200 years earlier for the Member of Parliament William Massingberd, that was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1944.