PRESERVATION OF WALLPAPERS AS PARTS OF INTERIORS

Task of conservation. Case studies
The wallpaper imitated an embroidered or woven textile, which
depicted green lush foliage with exotic birds, insects, and various
fruits and flowers. (Fig. 111) From the pattern type and available
analogues, it was dated between the 1890s and 1910s.
Historicist patterns, and especially imitations of various
materials, were still widely used in fashionable Estonian interiors
until the beginning of the 20th century. 406 The surviving
wallpaper and additional applications revealed a three-part decoration
scheme, which had been popular between the 1870s and
the beginning of the 20th century, when it was recommended
for use in rooms open to guests, 407 such as parlours and dining
rooms. 408 According to literature from the end of the 19th century,
it was recommended that walls be separated from ceilings
and floors visually. For an artistic result, decorators started to
frame wallpapers with borders on all four sides. 409 In the dining
room in the Puurmani manor, the wide border was sided by an
additional strip of plain paper, which made the result even more
refined. The corners of the framing border were embellished
with special applications. Due to the combination of coffered
wooden ceiling, oiled floor and wallpaper, the general image of
the whole room was rather dark, which was very common for
historicist room decoration.
Although the decorative scheme of the Puurmani manor is
the only one of its kind discovered and conserved in Estonia,
several of its analogues can be seen in historical photographs.
One of the most expressive examples is the salon-study of the
Uuemõisa manor (Fig. 112), where the filling is surrounded
by a wide border and a strip of plain paper. Each segment was
treated as a separate segment. A similar, but simplified version
of the three-part decorative scheme can be seen in the hall of
the Voose manor (Fig. 113), and the boudoir and white hall of
the Vääna manor.
406
Thümmler and Turner, “Unsteady Progress: From the Turn of the Century to the Second
World War” in The Papered Wall. The History, Patterns and Techniques of Wallpaper,
ed. Lesley Hoskins (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 2005), 186.
407
Woods, Kosuda Warner and Jacqué, “Proliferation:...”, 152.
408
Von Savigny, “Tapeten und Dekorationstoffe”, 199.
409
Von Falke, Die Kunst im Hause, 230.
224