WallpaperScholar.Com

Sensational

2011-12-14T05:02:00.000-08:00

Click on these links, you'll be glad you did!

The Curator for Attingham Park, Sarah Kay, has announced that a project reviving an 1807 decorative scheme on paper associated with John Nash has been completed. The paper used is "elephant", the standard 22" x 28" often used for paper-hangings.

This combination of conservation, restoration and re-creation has taken about 11 years including research, analysis and work. It was done as a conservation-in-action project in front of the house's visitors while explaining the complexities of the work.

They have filmed the process and have produced a half-hour documentary, plus 3 short introductory films about different aspects of the scheme. The short films are on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWPSGurTq5M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnqFofF6HuE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAzl1XM9yxY&feature=related

The main web site for Attingham Park, which is a property of the National Trust, is HERE.

Pamela Simpson Dies at 65

2011-12-06T11:59:00.001-08:00

Dr. Pamela H. Simpson, author of "Cheap Quick & Easy: Imitative Architectural Materials" died on Oct. 4 from cancer at the age of 65.

Her article about embossed wall coverings around 1900 was published by the Wallpaper History Society in their 1996/1997 Review.

Her first book was “The Architecture of Historic Lexington,” which she co-authored with Royster Lyle Jr.. It was published in 1979 and remains an important resource for understanding and appreciating the historic buildings of Lexington, Kentucky. Her completed manuscript, “Corn Palaces and Butter Queens: The History of Crop Art and Dairy Sculpture,” will be published by the University of Minnesota Press.

A link to a news article about Dr. Simpson is here.

Review: "Wallpaper and Taste"

2011-11-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

Review: "Wallpaper and Taste", Chapter 6 in Behind Closed Doors by Amanda Vickery, Yale University Press, 2009.

The chapter differs little from her earlier essay, "Neat and Not Too Showey," already reviewed. For sheer page-turning appeal, this chapter pales in comparison to the rest of the book. It's unlikely that Mr. Trollope was ever addressed as "My Dearest Life!," nor that fornicating bachelors made heartfelt confessions to his clerks. The letter-books record business.

Although taste is a concern throughout the book, here it is tackled head on. She presents the letter-book as “a key to the disregarded aesthetics of what might now be termed middle England,” thus seeking recognition for the decorative choices of the non-elite. She traces the "factors that affected Trollope's customers' choice for a particular paper, the conventions that governed the decoration of different rooms and the everyday aesthetic vocabulary they deployed." She finds Trollope’s records most valuable for the insight they give into how a range of people appreciated and discussed the same material—which was, of course, always wallpaper.

It's certainly valuable to learn which colors and patterns were popular for certain rooms. But, some cautions come to mind. There doesn't seem much differentiation among flocks, satins, borderwork, plain papers, or common papers, nor are costs assigned to these types. Indeed we hear little about cost, a most important attribute. Custom coloring is presented as a common concern of the letter-writers. Yet, as far as I know, paperstainers offered such coloring only as an extra. It's clear that some correspondents were furnishing servant's quarters, others were looking for a bargain, and some were landladies hustling to get a flat ready. It's unlikely that any of these were eager to pay extra. Of course, the scarcity of information may have constrained the discussion.

So little wallpaper remains that our greatest difficulty is imagining what vanished wallpaper looked like while staring at bare walls, or at a billhead full of black and white numbers. Yet, when documented papers are found, what impresses most is their incredible diversity, not the commonality that they were all wallpaper. So, what's most important may depend on which end of the telescope you’re looking through. Here, she distills hundreds of letters down to a half-dozen descriptors, and assigns meaning to the vocabulary using literary sources; but, the results may say as much about words as about wallpapers.

We should remember that large shops working the London trade were a small minority of the 150 or so paperstainers in England around this time. Most paperstainers were in villages and small towns where the proprietor "designed and produced his own blocks, printed his papers, sold them direct to the public, and (usually) hung them in the houses of his clients" (Sugden and Edmundson, 135, 114).

Sugden and Edmundson are far from infallible, as others have noted; and yet, what they say about rural shops rings true, and helps to fill up the picture. Their book confirms the popularity of the marble and granite types mentioned by Vickery, which were mainstays of the trade as late as 1875 or so. Vickery quotes approvingly from Beckmann on stonework and certainly the writings of this German academic have much to offer. He and Robert Dossie were ahead of their time in their attention to the materials of decoration.

There seems some confusion about renovations in the Lady Rodney's and Simmons’ households (page 173). "Paint" can refer to ground color, design color, or architectural painting. The paperstaining trade never settled on a word for color, using “inks”, “distemper”, "staining" and “paint” more or less indiscriminately. If there is unfamiliarity with the wallpaper field, it doesn’t invalidate Vickery’s cultural conclusions, but may shade them somewhat. In this regard, she finds little use of yellow in the trade before 1740 or so, and while it's true that Cornforth agrees (for elite interiors) there are plenty of references to yellow papers in the writing of Entwisle, Wells-Cole, in the compendium The Papered Wall and in back numbers of the Wallpaper History Society Review.

The inventories tabulated on page 208 reveal nothing about wallpaper, as usual. She gets around this by using a variety of sources to discuss wallpaper choice, a welcome innovation. We learn much through these asides, because personality and context come through. The paper-hangings made up for Lady Glandore's petite dressing room sound enchanting. A white paper is dressed with a pink silk border with applique gold and white flowers and even the chairs have paper borders on gauze on pink linen. A poignant picture is painted of a happy room in an unhappy house.

One of her projects is bringing back the importance of feminine domestic crafts. She argues that we've lost the power to read them correctly. Although these were banned from important rooms by Sheraton and other advice writers, they found their way back in and were even framed and glazed. Vickery laments the distortions of museum collections, which favor the fine, the costly and the unique. While this may be true of the V & A, as she points out (and we can extend that to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in the U. S.), there’s a good reason for the bias—both of these are design museums.

Since most wallpapers fall outside the canons of (superior) taste, both institutions seem not quite sure what to do with their large wallpaper collections, which are the largest for each country. Wallpapers soon falter as examples of pure design, and there do not seem to be alternative museums of material culture that are anxious to take the collections off their hands. The question "what is wallpaper, if it is not design?" has yet to be answered, and, in some quarters, it has yet to be asked. In any case, the foreclosure of serious thought about the subject goes back a long way. Vickery is hardly at fault for an impasse in the study of wallpaper, which seems especially dire in the U. S. On the contrary, she should be commended for a fresh approach. Significantly, she comes from a different field than decorative arts.

Wallpaper emerges here as a most important dressing for the walls. Like dress for the body, it can project a certain character. Her comparison of wallpaper to clean linen that covers an unwashed body and makes it acceptable (if not any cleaner) has resonance. It might even help explain our ambivalence about what, exactly, wallpaper represents.

In the area of style, it's intriguing that one customer wonders whether it’s proper to “cut out the borders as formerly” or just “leave the edge.” It sounds like they were cutting away the bottom edge of the border to achieve a more tromp l’oeil, naturalistic look. Lady Lumm's discovery that Trollope's paperhangers are "mistaken, mistaken, three times mistaken!", as Vickery comments, seems to have provoked the first recorded wallpaper emergency. We can imagine that her letter threw the factory into overdrive.

The papers shown in Plates 17 and 19 resemble what many associate with wallpaper—more or less mindless or nondescript fill patterns. The word that comes to mind is “mousy.” Although French wallpaper is never mentioned, it casts a long shadow. That nation's eternal competition with Britain cannot be ignored. And, their wallpaper was rampant in the world market (nowhere more than here) at just this time. Fine French wallpaper was specified as the first choice for the newly erected White House, and the less expensive types poured into big city ports, replacing the English paper that had long dominated our consumption.

Plate 17 shows a wonderful small chain border and it is worth knowing that this pattern is currently being blockprinted by Adelphi in Sharon Springs, New York. The shadow-lines for the border in Plate 19 are somewhat unexpectedly placed above the pattern, something found in the French borders hung in Virginia, at Prestwould, in 1831. This seems to have been a conscious choice at Prestwould, based on other examples in the house, and it would be interesting to know how prevalent the style was in England.

Her examination of interior decorating attempts to redeem it from caricature and myth. In typical Vickery fashion, it's not an either/or choice between masculine domination or feminine frippery. She finds instead that interior decorating bridged gender divisions and was matrimonial in its overtones: "for the majority of polite consumers, decoration fell not within the sphere of architecture, high-design debate and fashionable patronage, but rather came within the capacious but commonplace remit of housekeeping." This homely redirection, though it might rob interior decorating of some magic, sounds right.

Even style is taken down a notch (is nothing sacred?). She admits that Georgians were obsessed with style, but explains that it was driven by something else—their obsession with status: "The grammar of decorum was deeper than the expression of a passing fashion. It was about status rather than style."

She says that "iron convention" governed which patterns were appropriate," that Trollope's customers had "an obsession with propriety" and that they were as slavish as lords and ladies to the rule that decor should correspond to rank. These are large claims, and, in a word, some of these seem too neat. They don't seem to allow much leeway for individual expression.

The way that James Hewitt leaves the choice of a white sprig paper to his brother is a good example. The concern was important enough to write down, but the outcome is unclear: "I leave it to you". The final choice must have depended on what sort of sprigs were in stock, whether they were on a polished or plain ground, the taste of Joseph Hewitt, the time and money available—so, more of a negotiated choice than one would infer from the emphasis on decorum and propriety found throughout this chapter. Just as consumers defied Sheraton's rules by infiltrating dining and drawing rooms with the contraband of feminine ornaments, it's safe to assume that many wallpaper consumers did not make safe choices, but instead were assertive in their choices and perhaps even transgressive.

Another revealing story features James Hewitt again. This successful barrister economized on his staircase (it was papered only as far as could be seen from downstairs). The exact same thing happened in a well-kept lawyer's residence in Washington, D.C. around 1800 or so. No doubt cost-cutting measures like these were common on both sides of the Atlantic. It would seem that in these cases cost was what mattered most, outpacing both status and style.

Review: "Behind Closed Doors" by Amanda Vickery, 2009, Yale University Press.

2011-11-01T10:38:00.001-07:00

Only one of Vickery's ten chapters is about wallpaper. More about that in a minute, but first—this is a very accomplished book. That is not a reference to the traditional patronization of ladies' "accomplish'd" hair-, feather-, and shellwork. Vickery spends many pages exploring and rehabilitating that genteel work.

Her goals: "this book takes the experience of interiors as its subject, staking claim to an uncharted space between architectural history, family and gender history and economic history. It brings hazy background to the fore to examine the determining role of house and home in power and emotion, status and choices."(pg. 3)

Only a bold and ambitious writer would tackle the vast canvas of domestic life in England in the Georgian period (roughly 1688 to 1830 or so). The case studies and reviews of scholarly literature alone prove prodigious research. The prose is not always crystal clear but it's muscular. She weaves a convincing tapestry of what life was like for her cast of diarists, letter-writers, widows, spinsters, apprentices and shoppers.

The approach is unusual. Equal parts E. P. Thompson, John Cornforth and Jane Austen, she skips from social and folkway history to entertainments in great houses to imagined conversations in parsonages, all of this to bring out how people lived and why they lived that way. Her conclusions do not add up to a consistent world-view, but do they need to? The book is studded with wise observations.

The conventions and prerogatives of household control have long been marked by misogyny, prejudice and exploitation, and these faults have been explained away or perpetuated by later commentators. Sharp reappraisals of family life from a feminist or radical perspective, though useful correctives, are themselves sometimes off the mark. It is not yet clear what historic family life meant, and what it can tell us about how we should live today. This troubled history supplies an abundance of fat targets for her darts, which are well-placed and effective. She is also expert at fitting quotes into her text, and this helps to sustain interest throughout what is really a small encyclopedia of Georgian life.

Some may find this an emphatically feminist reading, but this criticism overlooks an important point. If the long ago voices she employs are almost always female, and if her conclusions occasionally stand male/female relations on their head, it is because of three things: 1. her research found that men couldn't be bothered to keep domestic journals; 2. on the evidence, they refused to apply the dictates of the Enlightenment for greater equality, freedom and so on to their home kingdoms: "I have yet to encounter a single gentleman musing on whether it might be possible to reconsider his domestic rule in the light of the new political ideas" (pg. 185); and, 3. domestic life for the period surely was strongly marked by sexism, and it takes neither a female nor a scholar to recognize that.

She deflates fond notions and sheds new light, employing a sort of swarming offense that never lingers long enough on any point to erect a scaffold for a larger theory. Which is perhaps just as well. The way that this iconoclastic book cheerfully pulls down tottering assumptions is enough of a reward. More theory would have weighed it down, reducing appeal to the elusive educated lay reader toward whom it seems well-directed. One definition of a good book must be that it forces us to consider how we live today. After completing this book, I felt profoundly grateful that my household's daily linen and cooking needs don't condemn anyone to hours of arduous toil.

She talks often of decorum and found a decorous way of integrating strains of thought by introducing the reader to the themes of scholarly work ("Cohen has found...", "Bermingham suggests..." and so on), but then suppressing the discussion to a footnote. This is wise because if she had lingered on these debates, there would have been no room for the news that "by the 1750s pans outnumbered pots by two to one in thefts of furnishings from humble London lodgings" (pg. 266). Similarly, I guess I suspected that the "nobility were a peculiar minority" but I did not know that there were just 350 peers by 1832 in a population of over 18 million (pg. 130). Nor did I suspect that the typical marriage around 1700 lasted only ten years (pg. 208). The nitty-gritty information gleaned from cases at the Old Bailey is especially valuable and her chapter on locks, boxes and keys is surprisingly profound.

I was alternately baffled, amused and educated by the Brittishisms that popped up now and again. "Spirits were as firewater with him"; "Of a different kidney altogether was Sylas Neville..."; "The householder...paid scot and bore lot". Dilatory builders and decorators are not hassled by customers but "chivvied"; James Boswell "could not help wondering if his landlord would tick him off for nocturnal naughtiness" but here in the home of Yale University Press "ticked off" carries an entirely different meaning. Renting out an extra room was a "financial makeweight", and in the same vein a sensible husband allowed his wife to spend money, because "there was no making bricks without straw".

It must be wonderful to be able to describe the Georgian period in what sounds to an American ear like Georgian language. The chapter on wallpaper bears closer examination and will be reviewed in an upcoming post.

Review: "Neat And Not Too Showey"

2011-10-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

Review: “‘Neat And Not Too Showey’: Words and Wallpaper in Regency England” by Amanda Vickery in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830, edited by John Styles and Amanda Vickery, 2006, Yale Center for British Art.

This chapter essay plumbs the significance of the Trollope and Sons letter book, a rare collection of correspondence between that paperstaining house and their customers 1797-1808 housed at the London Metropolitan Archives.

The lessons of her leading anecdote (about papers ordered by a strait-laced parson) are offered as merely “suggestive” about taste, personal preferences, and consumer choice. This sets the tone. Ultimately, the essay says far more about words in Regency England, and our interpretation of them, than about historic wallpaper use. Indeed, her main points seem to be not about wallpaper, but rather how the correspondence might shed light on other aspects of consumer culture. The limitations are not surprising, when we consider how much of the material culture of wallpaper has been lost, and how little we know about the records that survive. It is frustratingly difficult to assign meaning to transactions, even when we have the consumers’ own words, as here.

Her investigation into “neat” as wallpaper descriptor is surprisingly fruitful (and “gaudy” is only slightly less interesting). And, it is interesting how quickly the patrons cede control to Trollope in choice of pattern (though not without some recriminations). But, the letters reveal little about the letter-writers themselves outside of immediate concerns. Still less clear is how the buying habits of the patrons of Trollope and Sons relate to the wider paper-hangings market. Vickery is adept at pointing out that though all agreed on the importance of taste, none could define it. If we are any clearer on what "good taste" in wallpaper consisted of based on the letter book, it would seem that it was channelled toward conformity.

The defense for the unaccountability of taste is an old theme; alternatively, a suggestion is made here that taste was so taken for granted that contemporaries couldn't be bothered to comment. These defenses were no less true around 1800 than they are today. But, the way that taste was expressed in 1800 is certainly different than today, which is why we care about old letter books and other evidence.

It's certainly true that the letters offer “rare insight into the desires and anxieties of a group of consumers." But whether they also offer “a lexicon of the working language of consumer taste” is somewhat more in doubt. "Handsome", "neat", "pretty", and even "gaudy" remain slippery concepts, even though this essay is a helpful exploration.

These disappointments are balanced by new and useful information and several insightful passages relating wallpaper to other forms of consumer culture. Chief among the discoveries are the comments of Countess Poulett about the new trend of borders going up the corners of the room. This is not specifically dated, but it must belong to the turn of the century. This suggests that the convention (which is also mentioned in the Duppa, Slodden letter books of the 1810’s and 20’s housed at the V & A) was actually a revival style helping to modernize the papered room for neoclassical taste rather than a continuation of the very old and necessary tradition of bordering each margin of the room.

There are a few boners. She calls the 1509 Cambridge fragments the first wallpaper, but these were printed on offcuts from a printing press and stuck onto beams, and fall firmly into the “unwallpaper” category. Indeed, it is the discarded texts themselves (subsequently overprinted with pattern) referencing the end of one royal reign and the beginning of another which allow the fragments to be dated.

Her text clouds the fact that decorated paper made the audacious leap to the perpendicular wall not in the bedrooms and sanctum sanctorums of English ladies, but in full view, over the mantel or fireplace; nor are we told that this occurred in many different countries and within a less privileged social class. Her assertions that “wallpaper’s career was essentially one of pretense,” and her repeated characterization of wallpaper as an imitation are flat out wrong.

To illustrate: ground beef is derived from beef. But, that fact does not make hamburger an imitation of beefsteak. Nor is it fair to call a hamburger pretentious, just because it is not a steak. Similarly, paper-hangings are not simply less competent or sham versions of silk and chintz. They deserve unqualified recognition, particularly in a volume about material culture.

French writers understand the distinction. Jean-Pierre Seguin's observed in Wallpapers of France: 1800-1850 that cutting-edge workshops in Paris persisted in printing many flat distemper colors of the most subtle shades to render fabric-like wallpapers, when they could have easily shortened the work by using flock. Nancy McClelland got it right in 1924: “wallpaper has succeeded in being always a reproduction and yet keeping always a definite character of its own, due to its texture and its processes.”

For a contribution to a volume about gender, her observations about that subject are surprisingly slim. But, when they come, they are fresh and counter-intuitive. It is most interesting that she found no evidence in the letter books for the “gendering of interiors”: light colors and gay patterns for women, dark and grave for men, and so on.

She shows us how the costs and frequent re-paperings recorded in Martha Dodson’s account books illustrate the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of paper-hangings. Some 21% of the correspondents in the letter book in 1798 were women. Vickery compares this to women's purchases of silver (they influenced only about 12% of those choices, ostensibly) and china and pictures (about the same recorded influence, on the whole). She is convincing when she suggests that even this 21% probably falls short. Referring to the trade card images of Wheeley’s and Masefield’s showrooms, she comments that “choosing wallpaper a deux may even have symbolized marital harmony.”

She makes the keen observation that it was not just that ashlars and other stone types of paper were appropriate for hallways and entries on a materials basis — the neutral tones also served as a foil for the elaborate colors and patterns reserved for more important rooms. She is strongest when she analyzes how the existing rules of decorum applied to the paper-hangings environment (pg. 205 and following). She explains why we should not be surprised that certain colors were chosen for show, or as a backdrop for pictures, or for certain rooms, or for rooms with a northern or southern exposure. These were a continuation of norms for the decoration of homes, albeit of homes that tended toward the upper end.

The essay raises interesting questions about the interplay between color and pattern. She finds that “the most consistent factor shaping the customers’ choice of paper was total decor.” A discussion follows about the coloring of paper to match other features of the home. Many correspondents mentioned color in a most rudimentary way, as in “a green paper”, "a French gray”, etc., and she acknowledges that since no examples are in the Trollope archives (in contrast to other depositories, which have swatches), we are left unsure of what the letter-writers actually meant.

She also acknowledges the limitations of this sampling. Letters were exchanged only in certain situations: when problems arose; for repeat orders; when customers were at a distance; or when they had difficulty paying. Thus, even though hundreds of letters were studied, they are only part of the business. Although she does not say so explicitly, off-the-shelf orders (stock in trade, cash and carry, call it what you will) must have accounted for a certain proportion of sales. These customers had no need for letters of any sort. Unfortunately, it is not possible to guess what this proportion might be.

She refers to the use of common blue papers for “underpapering.” We must assume she means as lining paper. But, it is unlikely that a common paper (a general description for a low-priced paper, often ungrounded) would have been used as a liner. Her reference to the color —blue— offers a clue that these may have been coarse blue and green lining and wrapping papers such as bagcap and lumberhand. They may even have been "stamp'd elephant", a blank type of paper hung and then distempered, but which was also used for lining occasionally. The coarse types of liner were not much different than the so-called “sugar papers” used to wrap sugar and other confections. This last phrase is often used, in a confiding tone, by my British correspondents when they describe cheap paper. I have not yet found the heart to tell them that Americans of my generation relate as much to “sugar paper” used for sweets as we do to "excelsior" being used for packing — that is, we don’t use the term at all!

For Vickery, “neat”, though a small word, is capable of heavy lifting. She uses it so often it seems almost a synonym for the general notion of “decorum,” i.e., consumers were so anxious that their decoration should be thought appropriate that this pursuit led them toward patterns that were indisputably “neat.” This seems a little too pat. Where there no adventurous consumers? Maybe "smart" picked up where "neat" left off.

The tendencies of “neat” toward control, repetition, restraint, and the like point toward folk art, but this implication goes unexplored by Vickery, although she does note the application of “neat” to an array of similarly broad and relatively low-priced consumer products.

Her conclusion is a strong statement which seems aimed at the other writings of the volume: “In these letters, the ancient contest between luxury and virtue is refought on the terrain of trellis, stripe, and ribbon, in ways that draw on a long-standing set of assumptions about domestic decorum.”

Wallpaper Club: Elsie Klumpner

2011-09-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

As I've been mentioning, the mailing of the "Historic Paperhanging Techniques" essay has brought me back into contact with many wallpaper people from past associations, and introduced me to new people, too.

It's surprising what a hold wallpaper still has. While we see it often on stages and film sets (most recently scads of it in "The Help") this popular culture use usually looks backwards. Nevertheless, these dramatic displays keep wallpaper in front of us, awaken curiosity, and remind us that a rigorous approach to wallpaper history pays rich dividends.

One of those enthralled is Elsie Klumpner from the Washington, DC, area. She writes:

Bob,

I would love to be in contact with anyone who is interested in wallpaper, particularly those who might want to be part of a group in the USA.

Here is a little information about me:

I'm a former computer programmer who moved to Silver Spring, Maryland from Baltimore, Maryland in 1994 and embarked on a new career in decorative arts history. I received my Masters degree in 2003 from the Smithsonian-Parsons Masters Program in the History of Decorative Arts.

During grad school I focused my studies on 20th century furniture and industrial design. Following graduation I worked briefly with an auction house, then an antiques dealer and finally as the director of a small history museum - The Laurel Museum, in Laurel, Maryland. After leaving there in 2008 I began assistant teaching and then teaching in the Smithsonian Masters program from which I graduated. I now teach a Survey of Decorative Arts II (a catalog of objects in all media) and The History of Wallpaper. I taught an introductory wallpaper course in 2010 and will teach a course in Topics in Wall Coverings in the fall of 2012.

I am learning about wallpaper primarily on my own. I am reading, visiting collections, doing research and trying to make contacts - all in an effort to learn as much as I can about the history, technology and use of wallpaper. I've been very taken with the subject of wallpaper and wall coverings and am planning further courses and eventually a book on the subject of 20th century wall coverings.

Thank you so much for your information and your help. I will keep in touch.

Elsie
_____

Elsie also reports that she went to London to do some research on the history of wallpaper and attended the last lecture of the season at the Wallpaper History Society on July 12th. Clare Taylor spoke. She met many members of the society including: Treve Rosoman, Abby Cronin, Robert Weston, Georgiana Hamilton, Emma Hadry (from the Geffrye Museum), Caroline McNamara and a few others.

She also met with Gill Saunders at the V&A who graciously showed her some of their 20th century papers. Elsie plans to visit Manchester next to see the Whitworth collection (2nd largest in the U. K., I think) and meet Christine Woods.

Elsie can be reached at:

jimelsie@comcast.net

Sign You Up?

2011-08-31T18:30:00.000-07:00

- Thinking seriously of starting an occasional mailing list. Purpose: special news and information about wallpaper scholarship. Period.

- It would be nice if we could emulate groups such as the Wallpaper History Society (England) or the Association Les Amis du Papiers Peints (France), even if they appear to have the coolest names taken already.

- If this appeals to you, just let me know at the following email address:

wscom@roadrunner.com

Bob

Japanese Wallpaper

2011-08-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

Artful and intricate, "Leather Papers" contributed mightily to the elegant late 19th century interior, but we still know too little about them.

I was surprised yesterday when out of nowhere out pops an old friend in the middle of a list of search results: the fine article about Japanese leather paper by Felicity Leung. The link is below, from which a free PDF can be downloaded.

LEUNG, F.. Japanese Wallpaper in Canada, 1880s-1930s. Material Culture Review / Revue de la culture matérielle, North America, 28, jun. 1988. Available at: <http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/MCR/article/view/17363>. Date accessed: 31 Aug. 2011.

This article is almost a companion piece to Richard Nylanders "Elegant Late Nineteenth Century Wallpapers," The Magazine Antiques. August 1982, pp. 284-87. Nylander's article shows many of these wonders.

Swedish Wallpaper

2011-08-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

after sending out the essay on historic paperhanging technique I got several interesting "thank you" emails and links to new and interesting sites, like this one in Sweden:

http://www.handtrycktatapeter.se/

Handtryckta Tapeter are busily engaged in "...handprinting wallpapers for castles, mansions, appartements and huts around the world for 30 years now..."

I do work in castles on occasion (even if my own house is probably closest to the "hut" category).

Also, architectural conservator Richard O. Byrne sends a note that he has an antique crank-type wallpaper trimmer kicking around:

"You know anyone interested in wallpaper slitting machines c. 1900? I've one that I doubt I'll get the time to restore, and even then I'm not sure what I would do with it. Seems to be all there with typical surface rust, but nothing the new chelating agent Evapo-Rust would not soak off rather readily."

Historic Paperhanging Techniques: A Bibliographic Essay

2011-08-05T21:57:00.000-07:00

"Historic Paperhanging Techniques" is now available as a free download from the wallpaperscholar.com web site.

There has been little written on paperhanging technique. Most information is handed down or learned on the job. Trade magazines are helpful for learning about the workaday world of the historic paperhanger, but these did not begin until 1875 and are not widely available. Nevertheless, there's a considerable body of information out there if you know where to look: this essay helps you do just that.

This essay is 6,000 words and was written for the International Preservation Trades Workshop, Lancaster, PA, Aug. 2-6, 2011. It is dressed up with a fabulous postcard image of an early 20th century paperhanger gettin' down to business (supplied by master paperhanger friend Don Leetz of Wisconsin). Thanks, Don!

The essay brings in European sources like the interesting articles by Geert Wisse (Belgium), and Phillippe Fabray and Bernard Jacque (France). I only regret that the Commonwealth countries (Australia, New Zealand, Canada) were not addressed this time around. Surely they deserve further study. Wallpaper use was rampant in the 19th century and we see the same widespread use of hessian on plank walls, for just one example, in all of these countries, just as it was used in Hawaii, California and Texas.

Hard copies are available in a plastic binder, so let me know by email if these would find a good home in a library or other archive: info@wallpaperscholar.com

Download: Full Article

update: this article is now available on:

www.scribd.com/doc/63701733

Hitler: Paperhanger?

2011-07-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently not. See this article:

Hitler the Artist

O. K. Werckmeister

Critical Inquiry, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Winter, 1997), pp. 270-297

I have not looked into this very far. This article is by far the most enlightening. It establishes that Hitler's occupation (other than mass murderer) can best be described as fine artist.

There's a lot of documentation here about how and why Hitler was lampooned as an uneducated housepainter (mainly, this was a minor political strategy of his opponents in Munich). Apparently, the leap to paperhanger was made because of the allied nature of the trades.

Stay tuned.

On The Trail of The Paper Curtain

2010-03-06T18:59:00.001-08:00

One of the fascinations of wallpaper history is the rise and fall of the paper curtain. A poor man's window shade, they were much used around 1840 or so, and maintained their popularity long after the Civil War. Yet they are not well documented and are almost unremembered today.

Two factors leading to their demise were their ephemeral nature and association with a backwoods mentality. One type of paper curtain could be customized with painted scenes and these could be fairly elaborate. But the more popular type by far was was the cheaper printed version which had a simple rectangular border around a bouquet – and sometimes not even that.

Fortunately, paper curtains left a trail in newspaper and directory advertising and in popular literature, some excerpts of which are below. It is not always clear how wallpaper curtains differed from plain paper shades. Nevertheless, these references can help us get a mental image and place them in the social context.

One view of paper curtains came to me quite by accident. I had enjoyed the great Dreyer film "The Passion of Joan of Arc" and decided to rent another of his films. "Ordet" tells the story of a Danish farming family. The setting appears to be early 20th century. The middle son believes he is Jesus Christ.

About half an hour into the film, the Christ figure wanders over by a window, reaches up, pulls the shade down and LO, there is a paper curtain, complete with border and flowery vignette! Perhaps not an Oscar moment, but I was happy about it! To be sure, this may have been an oilcloth or some other "improved" material, but the basic paper curtain idea was there.

- RMK

1823:

"... the frozen lake lay without a shadow on its bosom; the dwellings were becoming already gloomy and indistinct; and the wood-cutters were shouldering their axes, and preparing to enjoy, throughout the long evening before them, the comforts of those exhilarating fires that their labour had been supplying with fuel...the paper curtains dropped behind our travellers in every window, shutting from the air even the fire-light of the cheerful apartments..."

from The Pioneers, James Fenimore Cooper, 1823, Chapter Five, pg. 46.

1830's:

"...the pew furnishings, as to cushions, carpets and colors, were the work and the monuments of the very diversified individual tastes of their occupants, while in the aisle there was nothing. The light was intense—white light, for the windows were many and the blinds were not; the curtains were poor, inadequate paper affairs, often rent, which allowed the penetrating beams to strike the face and enter the eye without mercy, and cause the hands and hats to go up in self-protection, 'the immense Navarino bonnets, nearly as large as an umbrella,' here finding a reason for being..."

from Annals of Brattleboro, 1681-1895, Mary Rogers Cabot, 1921.

around 1835:
"Supper was ready when we returned; and then the best room was assigned to the three ladies, while the gentlemen were to have the loft. We saw the stars through chinks in our walls; but it was warm May, and we feared no cold. Shallow tin-pans,—milkpans, I believe,—were furnished to satisfy our request for ewer and basin. The windows had blinds of paper-hanging; a common sort of window-blind at hotels, and in country places. Before it was light, I was wakened by a strong cold breeze blowing upon me; and at dawn, I found that the entire lower half of the window was absent. A deer had leaped through it, a few weeks before; and there had been no opportunity of mending it. But everything was clean; everybody was obliging; the hostess was motherly; and the conclusion that we came to in the morning was that we had all slept well, and were ready for a second ramble in the cave."
from Society in America, Harriet Martineau, 1:119 (1837); she was visiting Mammoth Cave near Nashville.

1840:

"...as our hero had never seen the inside of a New-England tavern before, he took particular notice of the painted floors, the wooden-bottom chairs, the green paper curtains at the windows; of an old-fashioned mahogany secretary, with a large Bible and two or three hymn-books placed with religious care on top; and of the profiles of the family, cut in white paper, and hung up in black frames around a yellowish sampler, with the name and age of the feminine prodigy who worked it somewhat ostentatiously emblazoned in gilded letters upon the glazing..."

from The Knickerbocker, Vol. 16, 1840; The Haunted Merchant, by Harry Franco, Chapter 9.

1842:

"I looked round for something to divert myself with until the hour of breakfast. I wandered to the window. The view from it was tame and did not hold me long.... I then turned my observation upon the room. It was still ruder in finish and in furniture than that below. The chairs and bedstead were evidently of domestic manufacture. A case of shelves, protected by a curtain of wall-paper made to roll up by a simple contrivance, was plainly of the same workmanship. I discovered that this supplied the place of a wardrobe. As my eye thus took account of the objects in the room, it fell upon one which gave evidence of a certain luxury nowhere else visible..."

from page 13 of "Record of an Obscure Man", by Mary Lowell Putnam, Ticknor & Sons, Boston, 1861; on the first page of the story the narrator says "...in the spring of 1842 I made a tour through some of the Southern and Southwestern States. I travelled chiefly on horseback..."

1850:
New Furniture: "...we shall devote some time and space to the description of a suite of new and elegant furniture...now, this may cause divers groans from 'honest country folk,' where chairs, a bureau, a looking-glass, and a table, are still considered the essentials of parlor furniture...but while we enjoy the honest sincerity which still lives in the shadow of wall-paper curtains, and deprecate the extravagant transparency of embroidered lace ditto, our veracity as a faithful historian compels us to do justice to the elegant articles, in which Mr. Henkel's good taste and the skill of his workmen are displayed..."
from Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. XL, page 152 (Feb. 1850).

1856:

"Dust Venetian blinds with feather brushes. Buy light-colored ones, as the green are going out of fashion. Strips of linen or cotton, on rollers and pulleys, are much in use, to shut out the sun from curtains and carpets. Paper curtains, pasted on old cotton, are good for chambers. Put them on rollers, having cords nailed to them, so that when the curtain falls, the cord will be wound up. Then, by pulling the cord, the curtain will be rolled up."

from A Treatise on Domestic Economy: For The Use Of Young Ladies At Home by Catherine Esther Beecher, pg. 304, NY, Harper, 1856.

1860's:

"He closed and locked the door, then untied the curtain string and lowered the green paper curtains, and next climbed the ladder that I had seen him descend, telling me to follow him. He opened the cover of an iron chest, and, after fumbling about inside it, asked me to look into its depths..."

from "Stringtown On The Pike: A Tale Of Northernmost Kentucky", by John Uri Lloyd, NY, Dodd, Mead and Co., 1901, Chapter 3: The Lost Deed.

1863:

Making Home Pleasant: "...anything that gives a room a cold, chilly appearance, should be avoided even in summer; for we like cool, shady places, but not damp ones, where there is nothing but shade. Green paper curtains, which are often used in sitting-rooms, though not allowed in the parlors, are the very worst possible species of shade to windows; and if you must have them at all, put them in the best rooms, where only now and then a person enters. In summer, the sunlight coming through green venetian blinds, or, better still, the fresh leaves of a clustering vine, with their exquisite shadows, on the floor and walls, is most refreshingly cool; but paper shades never can produce the same effect—they but color the light. When shades are used, they should be either buff or some delicate neutral tint..."

from The Genesee Farmer, Vol. 24, 1863: "A Monthly Journal Devoted to Agricultural and Horticulture, Domestic and Rural Economy" (Joseph Harris, Rochester, NY).

1864:

"... let anybody travel, as I did last year, through the valley of the Connecticut, and observe the houses. All clean and white and neat and well-to-do, with their turfy yards and their breezy great elms, — but all shut up from basement to attic...not a window-blind open above or below... I have my doubts about the sovereign efficacy of living in the dark, even if the great object of existence were to be rid of flies. I remember, during this same journey, stopping for a day or two at a country boardinghouse which was dark as Egypt from cellar to garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was first closed by outside blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding which it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive..."

from House and Home Papers, by Christopher Crowfield (H. B. Stowe) Atlantic Monthly (1864).

1871:

pg. 18: "...she locked them out and pulled the curtains close, and, though people continued to come to the door through the whole day, no one gained admittance or saw a sign of life about the house. Inside sat the widow and the child, scarcely aware of the passage of time. They only knew that it was still day by the rays of sunlight that came in through holes in the paper curtains, and pointed across the rooms like long fingers..."

pg. 33: "...she had been thinking since they left the house how people would come and wander through it, and peer at everything, and know just how wretchedly they had lived. Now they could not, for it would all be burnt up. She sat and fancied the fire catching here and there in their poor little rooms, how the clock would tick till the last minute, even when its face was scorched and its glass shivered, and then fall with a sudden crash; how the flames would catch at the bed on which the dead man had lain, the mean paper curtains, the chair she had sat in, Mrs. Rowan's little rocking-chair, at the table where they had sat through so many dreary meals..."

from Catholic World (Vol. 13, 1871); "The House of Yorke": the story is set in coastal Maine.

1873:

Improved Paper Curtains: Common paper window curtains labor under several grave defects, chief among these being their stiffness and readiness to tear. A material called Japanese paper is now manufactured in London, which appears to be free from these and other drawbacks, and which furnishes a cheap, tasteful, and durable curtain. The inventors claim that they can produce in this material imitations of French silk, damask, and cretonne. The colors, being body colors, are more durable than dyers usually employ for woollen fabrics. The material consists of a mixture of vegetable and animal fibre.

from "The Galaxy", Vol. 15, edited by William C. Church, 1873, New York, pg. 565.

before 1885:

The Household: Hints on Furnishing: "...before we had blinds, I used to cut common plain curtain paper the width of the shade and several inches longer and tack shade and paper together on the roller, roll up as high as I wished, cut the paper off the length of the shade, then fasten to the hem at the bottom with a fine thread or a few pins on the back. Of course, the paper is next the window..."

from the Canadian Messenger, April 1, 1885.

important texts

2010-01-02T14:11:00.000-08:00

c. 1680, trade card
George Minnikin Stationer at ye Kings Head in St. Martins Le Grand near Aldersgate makes & sells all sorts of Japan & other colourd paper hangings both in sheets & yards & sells all sorts of stationary wares at reasonable rates.
(BM)

c. 1690, trade card
At the Old Knave of Clubs, at the Bridge-foot in Southwark, liveth Edward Butling, who maketh and selleth all sorts of hangings for rooms, in lengths or in sheets, frosted or plain: also a sort of paper in imitation of IrishStich, of the newest fashion, and several other sorts, viz. flock-work, wainscot, marble, damask, turkey-work. Also shop-books, pocket books, writing-paper, brown-paper, and whited-brown paper, cards, and all other sorts of stationary wares, good and reasonable.
(BM)

1699, John Houghton, "Husbandry and Trade Improv'd":

Of paper there are divers sorts finer and coarser, as also brown and blue paper, with divers that are printed for the hanging of rooms; and truly, they are very pretty, and make the houses of the more ordinary people look neat. At Ebbisham [Epsom] in Surrey, they call it paper tapestry, and if they be in all parts well pasted close to the wall or boards they are very durable; and it ought to be encouraged, because 'tis introductory to other hangings. [No. 356, May 19, 1699].

...a great deal of paper is now a-days so printed to be pasted on walls, to serve instead of hangings; and truly if all parts of the sheet be well and close pasted on, it is very pritty, clean, and will last with tolerable care a great while; but there are some other done by rolls in long sheets of a thick paper made for the purpose, whose sheets are pasted together to be so long as the height of a room; and they are managed like woolen hangings; and there is a great variety with curious cuts which are cheap and if kept from wet, very lasting...[June 30, 1699].

c. 1700, advertisement
At the Blew Paper Warehouse in Aldermanbury London.
Are sold the true sorts of figured paper hangings in pieces of twelve yards long and others after the mode of real tapistry, and in imitation of Irish Stich, and flowered damask and also of marble & other coloured wainscot, fitt for the hanging of rooms, and stair-cases, with great variety of skreens, chimney pieces, sashes for windows and other things of curious figures and colours.
The patentees for the sole making thereof do hereby signify that their sd. pieces are not only more substantial and ornamental as well as cheaper than the counterfeits sold in other places but are also distinguished by these words on the back of each piece as their true mark vizt.
(Blew Paper Society's Manufacture)
Where are also sold blew sugar loafe and purple paper in reams (they being the only patentees for the making thereof) and linnen cloth tapistry hangings very cheap.

You may observe the following method in the putting up the said figured paper hangings. First cutt your breadths to your intended heights then tack them at the top and bottom with small tacks, and between each breadth leave a vacancy of about an inch for the borders to cover, then cut out the borders into the same lengths and tack them strait down over the edges of the breadths and likewise at the top of the room in imitation of a cornish and the same (if you please) at the bottom as you see described in the figure below without borders and with borders.
But if you will putt up the same without borders, then cutt one of the edges of each piece or breadth smooth and even, then tack itt about an inch over the next breadth and so from one to another.
But whether you putt them up with or without borders gently wett them on the back side with a moist spunge or cloth which will make them hang the smoother.
___
[There are at least five known advertisements for the Blew Paper Warehouse. See S & E, 40. Another version contains additional information]:

At the Blue-Paper Warehouse in Aldermanbury, London, are sold the true sorts of Japan and Indian figured hangings, in pieces of twelve yards long, and half ell broad, at 2 s. 6 d. by the piece. And another sort of large Japan and forest-work, in pieces of proper sizes, after the new mode, of real tapestry...the patentees for making the said figur'd hangings (observing the same to be counterfeited upon a thin and common brown paper, daub'd over with a slight and superficial paint) do hereby give notice, that the said true sorts may be distinguish'd from counterfeits by their weight, strength, thickness and colour, dy'd through; and are every way more lasting and serviceable. At the same places are to be sold blue sugar-loaf and royal purple paper by the ream.

1723, Jacques Savary (Savary des Bruslons), "Universal Dictionary of Commerce":
"...a dominotier makes a sort of tapestry on paper, which for a long time was used by the peasants and the poorer classes in Paris to cover the walls of their huts or their rooms and shops....by the end of the seventeenth century, the technique had reached a high point of perfection and elegance. Quite apart from the larger quantities of paper that are sold for export abroad and in the principle cities of France, there is not a house in Paris, however grand, that does not contain some example of this charming decoration, even if only in a wardrobe or other private room."

1734, instructions from Robert Dunbar (Aldermanbury):
please to observe the following method of putting up the said hangings in any room, viz., First, cut one edge of each piece or breadth, even to the work, then nail it with large tacks to the wall and paste the edge of the next breadth over the heads of the tacks and so from one to another, till the room be perfectly hung, observing to make ye flowers join. N.B. damp the paper before you put it up, and begin next the window and make stiff paste of the best flour and water.

1737, correspondence:
Thomas Hancock, Boston, to John Rowe, stationer, London.
"Sir – Inclosed you have the dimensions of a room for a shaded hanging to be done after the same pattern I have sent per Captain Tanner, who will deliver it to you. It's for my own house and entreat the favour of you to get it done for me to come early in the spring, or as soon as the nature of the thing will admitt.
The pattern is all was left of a room lately come over here, and it takes much in ye town and will be the only paper-hanging for sale wh. am of opinion may answer well. Therefore, desire you by all means to get mine well done and as cheap as possible, and if they can make it more beautiful by adding more birds flying here and there, with some landskips at the bottom, should like it well. Let the ground be the same colour of the pattern. At the top and bottom was a narrow border of about 2 inches wide wh. would have to mine. About three or four years ago, my friend Francis Wilks, Esq., had a hanging done in the same manner but much handsomer, sent over here from Mr. Sam Waldon of this place, made by one Dunbar, in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he, or some of his successors may be found. In other part of these hangings are great variety of different sorts of birds, peacocks, macoys, squirril, monkys, fruit, and flowers, &c.
But a greater variety in the above-mentioned of Mr. Waldon's and should be fond of having mine done by the same hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have two rooms more done for myself. I think they are handsomer and better than painted hangings done in oyle, so I beg your particular care in procuring this for me, and that the patterns may be taken care off and return'd with my goods."
(S&E)

1747, The London Tradesman, by Robert Campbell

Chapter 32
Of the Upholder and the Trades employed by him

I have just finished my house, and must now think of furnishing it with fashionable furniture. The upholder is chief agent in this case. He is the man upon whose judgment I rely in the choice of goods; and I suppose he has not only judgment in the materials, but taste in the fashions, and skill in the workmanship. This tradesman's genius must be universal in every branch of furniture; though his proper craft is to fit up beds, window-curtains, hangings, and to cover chairs that have stuffed bottoms.

He was originally a species of the taylor; but, by degrees, has crept over his head, and set up as a connoissieur in every article that belongs to a house. He employs journeymen in his own proper calling, cabinet-makers, glass-grinders, looking-glass frame-carvers, carvers for chairs, testers, and posts of bed; the woolen-draper, the mercer, the linen-draper, several species of smiths, and a vast many tradesmen of the other mechanic branches.

The upholder, according to this description of his business, must be no fool; and have a considerable stock to set up with: however, a young man who has a mind only to be a mere upholder and has no prospect of setting up in the undertaking way, does not require such a universal genius as I have been speaking of: he must handle the needle so alertly as to sew a plain seam, and sew on the lace without puckers; and he must use his sheers so dextrously as to cut a valence or counterpain with a genteel sweep according to a pattern he has before him.

All this part of the work is performed by women, who never served an apprenticeship to the mystery, as well as men. The stuffing and covering of a chair or settee-bed is indeed the nicest part of this branch; but it may be acquired without any remarkable genius. All the wooden-work they use is done by the joiner, cabinet-maker, and carver. A tradesman who is a good hand in the upholder's own branch is paid twelve or fifteen shillings a week; and the women, if good for any thing, get a shilling a day.

1747, General Description of All Trades

Upholders, the 49th [company] (pg. 214)

Most frequently called upholsterers, who are the absolute necessary tradesmen for decently or sumptously furnishing an house and a large branch of business it is, the working part of which is not hard, but clean and genteel; (and if they were not so, what would the nice ladies do with them?) therefore fit for smart youths, who have no strength to spare; for they even employ woman to do some of the needle-work.

Besides performing this part many of them are great shop-keepers, who have abundance of ready-made goods for sale always by them. Most of them are also appraisers (which see before) and several of them are undertakers too...

The upholsterers take with an apprentice generally from 20 to 30 l. who work from six to eight; pay a journeyman in common 2 s. 6 d. or 3 s. a day; or, if by the year, 15, 20, or 30 l. and his board. If a master only does business in a private way 100 l. may serve his occasions; but if he keeps a stock of upholstery ware and materials for funerals he had need have 500 l....

Arms. On a chevron between 3 tents as many roses.

Paper-Makers (pg. 159)

...[the Paper-Makers] goods go chiefly into the hands of the wholesale stationers, who vend them to the retailers, booksellers, printers, & c...There are likewise hangings for rooms made by colouring and embossing of thick paper, the making and dealing in which is now become a considerable branch of trade; the masters in this part seldom take an apprentice with less than 10 l. at the working part of which a journeyman can get 15 or 18 s. a week, and a shopman has generally 10, 15, or 20 l. a year and his board. To set up in this branch compleatly will take up 500 l.

1766, History and Practice of Wood Engraving, by Jean-Michel Papillon

. . . one of the first obstacles was the contrary attitude of my own father, whose firm opinion was that I should not make my career that of a fine engraver, but as an engraver exclusively of wallpapers; which were of course his line of business. . . .

. . . I was made to work all day printing wallpapers, as likely coloring them in when I was not cutting out the blocks, as going to houses of quality to attend to the hanging of papers. . . .

. . . when young, being engaged with my father in going almost every day to hang rooms with our papers, I was, some time in 1718 or 1720, at the village of Bagneux, near Mont Rouge, at a Monsieur De Greder's, a Swiss captain, who had a pretty house there. After I had papered a small room for him, he ordered me to cover the shelves of his library with paper in imitation of mosaic. . .

* from: Traité historique et pratique de la gravure en bois (3 vols.). The first extract is from 1:xi. The second is from 3:7 (this volume is also called the Supplement). The third is from 1:83.