Owen Jones (1809-1874) was a prolific designer of wallpapers. His designs drew heavily on his anthology of historic decorative motifs, published as The Grammar of Ornament (1856). However, unlike his contemporary, the architect and designer A.W.N. Pugin, Jones did not believe that one could simply reproduce past styles in a modern context. He believed that architecture and design should be of its time, but that it should look to the ornamental art of the past for inspiration. Though the forms he used were often naturalistic, he reduced them to flat forms in patterns based on his notion of ‘geometrical construction’. In his essay of 1852, ‘Colour in the Decorative Arts’ (published in George Shaw’s On the Manufacture of Glass), he wrote that ‘paper hangings should not call attention to themselves, but remain as a background for the paintings, engravings, and other art works’. Yet his wallpapers are characterised by strong colours in uncommon combinations, devised in accordance with his own colour theories.