The Millefleur Style: Floral Design with a History

Flowers are everywhere in art. As part of the natural world, as symbols, and even as an artist’s signature theme (think Van Gogh and his sunflowers). But with the millefleur style, flowers are literally everywhere.

Annunciation, detail of flowers. Fra Angelico

So, where did this style originate and what artists used it in their paintings?

A Thousand Flowers

The term millefleur means “a thousand flowers” in French, and it was originally applied to perfume made from a variety of flowers[1]. With time, it started being applied to the characteristic floral background on 15^th century Flemish and French tapestries, which features all kinds of flowers and leaves that cover all the surface between the figures. There’s a very similar term, millefiori, which derives from Italian and also means “a thousand flowers”. It refers to a glass-making technique, made famous by the glass-makers of Murano, Venice. The whole surface of the glass seems to be made of tiny multi-colored flowers.

Millefiori, Murano

Tapestry Mysteries

The millefleur background can be seen on numerous tapestries made in France and the Low Countries in the 15^th-16^th centuries. These tapestries usually depict courtly or allegorical scenes. The most famous example are the Unicorn tapestries[2], which show a unicorn as the central figure of several allegorical scenes.

The Unicorn Tapestries

These puzzling tapestries still keep art historians guessing as to their precise meaning and iconography, which are shrouded in mystery. The plants depicted in the millefleur background may have special significance as symbols, but their meanings can be difficult to decipher. Especially, since the millefleur background is not meant to be a botanical study, and the size of the objects on the tapestries, whether plants or animals, is inconsistent.

Renaissance Icon

La Primavera. 1470s-80s. Sandro Botticelli

The mysterious, alluring style of the Flemish tapestries inspired one of the greatest masters of the Italian Renaissance, Sandro Botticelli to paint his masterpiece, “La Primavera” (painted in the 1470s-80s). This painting borrows several characteristics from Gothic art, such as the composition arranged on one plane, the elongated figures, and the floral carpet background, characteristic of Flemish tapestries.

Experts say that there are over 500 plant species depicted on the millefleur background, with many of them completely identifiable today. Some of them include the iris and the muscari, both flowers of spring.

La Primavera, details of flowers. Sandro Botticelli

Nor was Botticelli the only Florentine painter to make use of the millefleur background. Around 1426, much earlier than “La Primavera”, Fra Angelico, a painter monk at the San Marco monastery in Florence, painted a meticulously detailed floral background in his “Annunciation”, currently at the Prado Museum.

The Annunciation. ca. 1426. Fra Angelico

Further Millefleur Influence

But the fascination with the millefleur background did not end with the Renaissance.

In 1848, a group of British artists formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with the idea to revive British art. One of the ways they proposed to achieve that aim was to look to art before the Renaissance to find fresh examples to emulate, as opposed to the Academic style’s copying of Raphael and other masters of the High Renaissance. The other three precepts were to have genuine ideas to express before painting, to study nature in all its details, and last, but not least, to paint “thoroughly good pictures”. The universal, artificial Academic style was soon challenged by these painters, seeking inspiration in the Middle Ages instead of classical antiquity.

While the original members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood soon went their separate ways, many generations of painters were influenced by their art, even into the 1900s. The genuineness, brilliant colors, and freshness of these paintings contrasted with the classical examples of art produced by the Academic artists.

The millefleur pattern, probably borrowed from the Florentine artists Botticelli and Fra Angelico, whom the Pre-Raphaelites admired, appears in an altered form in several Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

La Ghirlandata. 1873. Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti used a similar decorative plant pattern in several of his paintings. In “La Ghirlandata”, painted in 1873, the figure of the red-haired woman playing a harp is suspended before a kind of green leafy background, and in front of her, there are flowers hedging the bottom of the painting; they look like they might be columbines.

The Adoration of the Magi. 1886-90. Sir Edward Burne-Jones

William Morris and Burne-Jones, two painters connected to the Pre-Raphaelite movement, were also instrumental in bringing about a revolution in design that led to the Arts & Crafts movement. William Morris’ company Morris & Co produced astounding designs inspired by nature and medieval art, aiming to revive the lost craftsmanship of tapestry weaving, glass-making, and bookbinding, to name just a few. Sir Edward Burne-Jones was one of the painters who collaborated with William Morris on his designs. “The Adoration of the Magi” is a tapestry, designed by Burne-Jones, and produced by William Morris’s company. Commissioned for Exeter College, Oxford, it took 4 years to complete. The foreground is designed as a floral carpet showing detailed depictions of various flowers, including small irises, tulips, and marigolds.

William Morris designs

William Morris also produced an abundance of designs for wallpapers for Morris & Co, some of which also look like they may have been inspired by the tapestry millefleur technique. Their rich colors and beautifully interlaced floral patterns made them extremely popular. Morris patterns are can currently be found on anything from handbags to tea cups.

Another painter influenced by Botticelli’s use of millefleur was Evelyn De Morgan (1955-1919). A supporter of the suffrage movement and a pacifist, she is best known for her mythological and allegorical paintings that are full of symbolic details.

Flora. 1894. Evelyn De Morgan

Her “Flora” (1894) is inspired by Botticelli’s two best-known paintings “La Primavera” and “The Birth of Venus”.

Flora’s gown is clearly inspired by the second female figure from the right in “Primavera”. Her face, however, is a version of Botticelli’s Venus, with the same flowing blond hair and position of the neck.

Detail of Venus from Botticelli's The Birth of Venus and detail of Flora by Evelyn De Morgan

Last, but not least the millefleur technique could be one influence on Gustav Klimt’s sumptuous golden foreground covered in tiny flowers in “The Kiss” (1907-1908). Most scholars agree that he was inspired by Byzantine mosaics, creating an icon-like background of glowing gold for his lovers. But the bank they seem to be standing on is covered with flowers in jewel-like tones of purple, yellow, blue, and red. This could be a nod to the floral rhapsody of the millefleur tapestry style.

The Kiss. 1907-08. Gustav Klimt

Millefleur is also a style used in needlework. Many designers incorporate flowers and animals into their tapestry-like designs. Their size and subject matter is only limited by the author’s imagination, and the tiny flowers remain popular with cross-stitchers the world over.

Spanning different mediums from tapestries to paintings, this technique is found in numerous artworks, creating a distinctive carpet-like floral pattern. Its colorful and intricate appearance makes it very recognizable. See for yourself and you’ll likely spot the millefleur technique if you browse through some old manuscript illustrations or Early Renaissance paintings!