The 11 Best William Morris Prints to Hang in 2026

Americans run 4,400 searches a month for "william morris prints" (DataForSEO, August 2026), and the entire first page of Google is storefronts — not one actual guide to which pattern you should hang. That's a strange gap, because choosing a Morris is genuinely interesting: William Morris (1834–1896) spent three decades filling the Arts and Crafts movement's pattern library, and since his designs are long out of copyright, his work now shows up everywhere from museum shops to budget wallpaper rolls. This guide ranks the eleven Morris prints we carry, with the year and the story behind each, then gets practical about rooms, colourways, and frames.

The 11 Best William Morris Prints, Ranked

Every single below is $34.99 on the same paper at the same ten sizes, so the ranking is purely about the design — how each pattern reads on a wall, and where it earns its place. All eleven are authentic Morris & Co. patterns reproduced as William Morris art prints rather than wallpaper, which means you get the repeat at art scale without committing a whole room to it. Most were designed between 1864 and 1883, Morris's most productive two decades.

1. Strawberry Thief (1883)

The icon, and the obvious lead. Strawberry Thief started life as a furnishing cotton, registered in 1883 and printed with the slow indigo-discharge technique Morris spent years reviving — dye the whole cloth deep blue first, then bleach the pattern back out of it. The birds are documentary: thrushes kept raiding the strawberry beds at Kelmscott Manor, and Morris drew them mid-theft rather than net them. The V&A keeps an original printing in its collection. If you buy one strawberry thief print in your life, the pull is exactly this: it reads as a single artwork from across the room and as a hundred small decisions up close. Our giclée single is here.

2. Honeysuckle (1876)

Honeysuckle is Morris at full density — climbing stems and layered blooms locked into a large mirrored repeat, designed as a printed textile in 1876. Pick it when you want maximum Morris per square inch, and expect it to behave accordingly: cramped on a small wall, commanding on a big one. Go at least mid-size and give it room to breathe.

3. Tulip (1875)

Tulip, a printed cotton from 1875, trades the thicket for movement. The flower heads bend and nod along winding stems, which gives this pattern a direction most Morris repeats don't have — hang it where the eye travels, like a hallway or above a desk. For anyone not ready to commit to Peacock and Dragon, this is the friendlier door in.

4. Daisy (1864)

Daisy carries the history: it was the first Morris wallpaper to go on sale, issued in 1864, and it shows the whole project in embryo — simple clumps of meadow flowers, evenly spaced, drawn with an almost medieval flatness. That naivety is the point. It's the calmest pattern of the eleven, which makes the Daisy print the bedroom and nursery pick where a denser repeat would hum on the wall.

5. Kennet (1883)

In the early 1880s Morris named a run of textile designs after tributaries of the Thames, and Kennet (1883) is the river series at its best — small blossoms caught in swirling, current-like stems. Busier than Tulip but looser than Honeysuckle, Kennet hangs comfortably in rooms that already have some pattern going on.

6. Marigold (1875)

Marigold, from 1875, was issued as both wallpaper and printed fabric — a dense, single-colour scroll of blooms that behaves more like texture than picture. One colour is the practical advantage: it's the easiest Morris to drop into a room with an established palette, because it argues with nothing.

7. Marigold Blue

The same 1875 drawing in a deep blue colourway. Morris & Co. routinely printed each pattern in several colourways, and blue was the house obsession — Morris installed indigo dye vats at his Merton Abbey works to get it right. If your room already leans navy or denim, this is the Marigold to take.

8. Snakeshead (1876)

Morris's own favourite — he rated Snakeshead (1876) first among his printed textiles, which is saying something given the field. The design honours the snake's head fritillary, a chequered wildflower of the Thames-side meadows, filtered through the Indian textiles Morris was studying at the time. Collectors tend to agree with him: the Snakeshead print is the connoisseur's pick of this list.

9. Peacock and Dragon (1878)

The heavyweight. Peacock and Dragon was woven, not printed — a heavy wool cloth from 1878 made for curtains and wall hangings — and the scale shows it: confronted peacocks and dragons stacked in big mirrored bands. No design here is more architectural, and none is less willing to sit in the background. Hang Peacock and Dragon alone, large, on the wall you want people to stop at.

10. Morris Indigo Trio — Set of 3

Three indigo-leaning Morris patterns, matched and sized as one set for $69.99 — against three $34.99 singles that's $34.98 saved, and it skips the hardest part of a gallery run: making separate prints agree with each other. It's the fast route to a coordinated Morris wall in blue.

11. Morris Garden Trio — Set of 3

The Garden Trio does the same job in a lighter register — three botanical Morris patterns as one coordinated set, also $69.99. Between the two sets, pick by the room's base tone: the Indigo Trio for cooler rooms, the Garden Trio for warmer, plant-heavy ones.

Which William Morris Print Should You Choose?

Match the pattern's density to the room's job, and the choice mostly makes itself. Living rooms take the statement pieces — Strawberry Thief over the sofa, or Peacock and Dragon if the wall is big enough to let it breathe. Bedrooms want the quiet end: Daisy first, Tulip second. Kitchens and hallways suit Marigold, which reads as texture and shrugs off a busy backdrop, while a home office earns Kennet — enough movement to look at, not enough to distract. William Morris wall art rewards restraint either way: one strong pattern per wall, and if the goal is a finished wall in a single order, that's what the trio sets are for.

Palette is the other axis. Morris worked with natural dyes — indigo, madder, weld — so the patterns share a muted, earthy range that pairs with wood, linen and plaster far better than with high-gloss modern colour. It's also why Morris hangs so comfortably next to other 19th-century work: if one print turns into a wall, our vintage wall art collection is the natural place to keep building.

What Is William Morris's Art Style Called?

Arts and Crafts. Morris was the movement's central figure: he founded his decorating firm in 1861 — Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., reorganised as Morris & Co. in 1875 — and used it to argue, in wallpaper and cloth, that industrial Britain was making ugly things and didn't have to. The style's signatures are all over this list: flattened, stylised nature; pattern built on visible structure; and a stubborn commitment to hand processes like block printing and vat dyeing. The V&A's piece on Morris and wallpaper design shows how those hand-cut blocks actually worked, and the William Morris Society still operates from Kelmscott House, his former London home, if you want to go deeper than a poster.

How Do You Frame a Morris Print?

Searches for william morris prints framed run about 210 a month in the US (DataForSEO, August 2026), and there are two routes. Custom framing costs $50–$500+ per piece by MoMAA's framing cost calculator — defensible for an heirloom, hard to defend for a $34.99 print. The DIY route is easy here because these prints ship in ten standard sizes that drop straight into off-the-shelf frames: a William Morris poster arrives rolled in a tube, flattens overnight under a few books, and mounts full-bleed so the repeat runs to the frame edge. On colour, wood tones win. Morris designed for rooms full of timber and vegetable-dyed cloth, so natural oak and walnut frames sit inside his palette rather than on top of it — save black for the dark indigo grounds like Strawberry Thief and Marigold Blue. The full cost, sizing and two-thirds-rule math lives in our framed wall art buying guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are William Morris's most famous prints?

Strawberry Thief (1883) is the one most people can picture — thrushes stealing strawberries on an indigo ground. Behind it sit Snakeshead (1876), which Morris himself rated his best printed textile, Daisy (1864), his first wallpaper to go on sale, and Peacock and Dragon (1878), his best-known woven design.

Can you give me a list of William Morris patterns?

Morris & Co. produced dozens, but the most collected include Strawberry Thief, Snakeshead, Honeysuckle, Tulip, Daisy, Kennet, Marigold, and Peacock and Dragon — all covered in this guide. Morris also named a whole series of 1880s textile designs, Kennet among them, after tributaries of the River Thames.

How do you frame William Morris prints?

Wood tones work best. Morris designed for rooms full of timber and natural dyes, so oak and walnut frames sit inside his palette; keep black for dark indigo grounds like Strawberry Thief. Mount full-bleed so the repeat runs to the frame edge, or add a white mat to give smaller sizes more presence.

Where can I buy William Morris designs?

Morris died in 1896, so his designs are public domain — museums, wallpaper houses, and print shops all sell reproductions, and quality is what separates them. Haus of Prints carries eleven Morris pieces as giclée prints on 230gsm archival matte paper: nine singles at $34.99 and two trio sets at $69.99.

The Short Version

• Strawberry Thief (1883) is the definitive Morris — start there, and hang it where it can be seen from across the room.
• Snakeshead was Morris's own favourite; Daisy (1864), his first wallpaper on sale, is the calm pick for bedrooms and nurseries.
• Match density to the room: statement patterns for living rooms, quiet repeats for bedrooms, single-colour Marigold anywhere busy.
• Frame in oak or walnut, full-bleed; singles run $34.99 across ten sizes, the two trio sets $69.99.
  
  

All eleven patterns live in one place — the William Morris prints collection. Pick the wall first, then let the density rule do the choosing. Morris drew these to be lived with, and 140-odd years on they're still better at it than almost anything made since.