PRESERVATION OF WALLPAPERS AS PARTS OF INTERIORS

Methods of wallpaper production and mounting
paper hangings. 222 According to Sabine Thümmler, wallpapers
were framed with decorative mouldings, which were most commonly
left smooth or decorated with rocaille or shell forms. 223
Even after the mouldings had gone out of fashion, they stayed
in use for a long time.
Besides engraved wooden mouldings, matching cheap paper
borders were used to give a wall structure. In 18th century interiors,
borders ran along the perimeters of a wall, i.e. beneath
a cornice, above a dado, and along window and door frames,
over mantles and doors. Sometimes two strips of narrow borders
could be attached in corners. Corners formed of borders
may have been mitred or overlapped at 90-degree angles. By the
end of the 19th century manufacturers had developed matching
corner-pieces, which could be cut out and pasted onto the
corners formed by borders.
In most standard bell-etagé rooms, where walls were divided
into three sections – dado, filling and cornice - wallpapers were
hung on canvas bases attached to wooden frames. The walls
behind a wooden dado did not usually have any special finish
– even stone and brick could be exposed. After the canvas had
been mounted onto the frame, wallpapers were pasted over it.
Examples characteristic to this method are found in the Schönbrunn
Palace, the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt and in Riegersburg
224 in Austria.
Besides wallpapers, the space between the cornice and the
dado was filled with anything that could be attached to wooden
frames: chinoiseure lacquer plaques, wooden panels or textiles.
Such fillings could be moved with the rest of the mobilia: furniture,
artworks, lamps, carpets etc. When a room was redecorated
or the owner moved, the wallpapers were transported to
a new location, sold or preserved in an attic.
To install an English print room, both of the previously
described methods could be used. A paper-base formed by two
layers of paper was pasted together sheet-by-sheet without
222
Blakemore, History of Interior Design and Furniture, 238.
223
Thümmler, Die Geschichte der Tapete, 61.
224
Troschke, “Der Blaue Salon im Schloss Schönbrunn...”, 74.
131