PRESERVATION OF WALLPAPERS AS PARTS OF INTERIORS

Historic types of wallpaper and decorative schemes of interiors
As an additional embellishment, borders with dominant
designs were used to stress the outlines, edges and corners of
rooms, as well as mark the frames of doors and over-doors. Such
paper borders were also used to line painted walls, although
wallpapers were preferred for the covered cracks and other
faults of the wall finish. Wide festoon borders were used at the
cornice level, and narrow edgings at the chair rail level and
around the door were commonly papered.
The fashion of using plain papers out-lived several other
types and styles of wallpapers. Besides being used alone or as a
background for complicated decorative settings during the second
half of the 18th century, papers in crimson and magenta were
seen as the most fitting background for the warm glow of gilded,
ebony or black-lacquered picture -frames in Victorian interiors. 89
Besides red papers, dark blue wall covers were very widely used.
They served most commonly as complementary backgrounds for
displays of silverware, grey marble and granite artefacts. 90
Plain papers were frequently used as backgrounds for
French arabesque panel and papier en feuille settings and for
English print rooms. This is a good example of wall decoration
employing the symbology of ancient cultures.
Papier en feuille were ornaments produced in a sheet
form (en feuille) applied to a layer of plain paper or painted
wall. According to the Swedish wallpaper researcher Elisabeth
Hidemark-Stawenov, such wall decorations were made up of
two layers: the walls were covered with a green or blue plain
paper, which was pasted over with separate pieces of papier en
feuille cut to size. The latter came in various shapes, e.g. separate
architectural elements (columns, pilasters and rosettes), overdoors,
corner pieces, statues, trellising, brick- and stonework,
and rectangular, circular and octagonal “cameos” 91 with allegorical
Etruscan or Roman scenes. (Fig. 13) In addition to the
89
Ibidem.
90
Ibid., 199.
91
Bernard Jacqué, “From ‘papier en feuille’ to ‘decór’: the Industrialisation of
Decoration” in New Discoveries, New Research. Papers from the International Wallpaper
Conference at the Nordiska Museet, Stockholm 2007, ed. by Elisabet Stavenow-
Hidemark (Stockholm: Nordiska Museet Vörlag, 2009), 13.
48