The pattern on this furnishing fabric is called ‘Bird and Leaf’. It dates from the time when C.F.A. Voysey created his most interesting designs. Typically they featured flowing patterns incorporating pastel-coloured birds, animals, hearts, flowers and trees in silhouette. The background effect here is similar to that which Voysey describes in another design. He wrote: 'It is hoped that the broken effect of colour in the background can be got be mixing the colour of the bird and sea together, horizontally.’

Voysey was one of the most original and influential architects and designers working at the end of the 19th century. In 1882 he set up his own architecture practice and from the late 1880s started to design repeating patterns for wallpaper, woven and printed textiles and carpets.

Experts still argue about how much influence Voysey and his fellow designers had on the development of the Art Nouveau style. Voysey was an austere man and could not accept that he had any part to play in the development of the exuberant Continental version of the style. However, his dramatic abstract shapes do seem to have influenced the Art Nouveau posters and graphics by the Czech designer Alphonse Mucha.