Three kinds of paper-hangings have for some time past been much used
on account of their beautiful appearance and their moderate price. The
first and plainest is that which has on it figures printed or drawn
either with one or more colours. The second sort contains figures
covered with some woolly stuff pasted over them; and the third,
instead of woolly stuff, is ornamented with a substance that has the
glittering brightness of gold and silver. It appears that the idea of
covering walls with parti-coloured paper might have readily occurred,
but the fear of such hangings being liable to speedy decay may have
prevented the experiment from being made. In my opinion the simplest
kind was invented after the more ingenious, that is to say, when the
woolly or velvet kind was already in use[1140]. The preparation of
them has a great affinity to the printing of cotton. Wooden blocks
of the like kind are employed for both; plates of copper are also
used; and sometimes they are painted after patterns. Artists possess
the talent of giving them such a resemblance to striped and flowered
silks and cottons, that one is apt to be deceived by them on the first
view. Among the most elegant hangings of this kind, may be reckoned
those which imitate so exactly every variety of marble, porphyry,
and other species of stones, that when the walls of an apartment are
neatly covered with them, the best connoisseur may not without close
examination be able to discover the deception. That the resemblance may
be still greater, a hall may be divided by an architect into different
compartments by pillars, so as to have the appearance of a grand piece
of regular architecture. Whether M. Breitkopf at Leipsic was the
inventor of this kind of hangings, I do not know, but it is certain
that he brought it to great perfection.
The second kind, or, as it is called, velvet-paper (now called
flock-paper), is first printed like the former, but the figures are
afterwards wholly, or in part, covered with a kind of glue, over which
is strewed some woolly substance, reduced almost to dust, so that by
these means they acquire the appearance of velvet or plush. The ground
and the rest of the figures are left plain; but the whole process is
so complex that it is impossible to convey a proper idea of it by a
short description. The shearings of fine white cloth, which the artist
procures from a cloth manufactory, and dyes to suit his work, are
employed for this purpose. If they are not fine enough, he renders them
more delicate by making them pass through a close hair-sieve. This, as
well as the third kind, was formerly made much more than at present
upon canvas; and, in my opinion, the earliest attempts towards this art
were tried, not upon paper, but on linen cloth. The paper procured at
first for these experiments was probably too weak; and it was not till
a later period that means were found out to strengthen and stiffen it
by size and paste.
The invention of velvet-paper is by several French writers[1141]
ascribed to the English; and, if they are not mistaken, it was first
made known in the reign of Charles I. On the 1st of May 1634, an
artist, named Jerome Lanyer, received a patent for this art, in
which it is said that he had found out a method of affixing wool,
silk and other materials of various colours upon linen cloth, silk,
cotton, leather and different substances with oil, size and cements,
so that they could be employed for hangings as well as for other
purposes[1142]. The inventor wished to give to this new article the
name of Londrindiana, which appears however not to have continued in
use. It is worthy of remark, that this artist first made attempts to
affix silk upon some ground, but that method as far as I know was not
brought to perfection; that he employed for the ground, linen and
cotton cloth, or leather; and that no mention is made of his having
used paper, though he seems not to have confined himself entirely to
leather or cloth.
Tierce, a Frenchman, has however disputed this invention with the
English; for he asserts that one of his countrymen at Rouen, named
François, made such kinds of printed paper-hangings so early as the
year 1620 and 1630, and supports his assertion by the patterns and
wooden blocks which are still preserved, with the above-mentioned years
inscribed on them[1143]. He is also of opinion, that some Frenchmen,
who fled to England when persecuted for their religion, carried this
art along with them. The inventor’s son followed this business to a
great extent for more than fifty years at Rouen, and died in 1748. Some
of his workmen went privately to the Netherlands and Germany, where
they sold their art; and the French, therefore, with great confidence
maintain, without knowing our artists and their works, that foreigners
in this branch of manufacture are still far behind them. In most works
of the kind my countrymen indeed are only imitators, not through want
of talents to invent or to improve, but because our great people, for
whom they must labour, consider nothing as fashionable or beautiful,
except what has been first made by the French or the English.
I shall here observe, that Nemeitz ascribes the invention of
wax-cloth-hangings, with wool chopped and beat very fine (these are
his own words), to a Frenchman named Audran, who in the beginning of
the last century was an excellent painter in arabesque and grotesque
figures, and inspector of the palace of Luxemburg at Paris, in which
he had a manufactory for hangings of that kind[1144]. What particular
service he rendered to the art of making paper-hangings, I have not
however been able to learn. Equally uncertain and defective is the
information of Von Heinecken[1145], that one Eccard invented the art of
imprinting on paper-hangings gold and silver figures, and carried on a
manufactory for such works.
In regard to the time when these hangings began to be made in Germany,
I can only say that the oldest information I know respecting them is
to be found in a work[1146] by Andrew Glorez von Mahren, printed for
the first time in 1670. It shows that the art was then very imperfect
as well as little known, and that it was practised only by women upon
linen for making various small articles[1147].
One of the most ingenious new improvements in the art of manufacturing
these hangings, consists in bestrewing them here and there with a
glittering metallic dust or sand, by which they acquire a resemblance
to rich gold and silver brocade. From the above-quoted work it appears
that artists began very early to cover some parts of paper-hangings
with silver-dross or gold-foil; but as real gold was too dear to be
used for that purpose, and as imitations of it soon decayed, this
method seems not to have been long continued. Instead of these,
Nuremberg metallic dust as well as silver-coloured foil are employed.
Metallic dust is the invention of an artist at Nuremberg, named John
Hautsch, who constructed also a carriage which could be moved by the
person who sat in it. He was born in the year 1595, and died in 1670.
His descendants have continued to the present time the preparation
of the metallic dust, which is exported in large quantities from
Nuremberg, and is used in shell-work, lackered-ware, and for various
other purposes. It is prepared by sifting the filings of different
metals, washing them in a strong lye, and then placing them on a plate
of iron or copper over a strong fire, where they are continually
stirred till their colour is altered. Those of tin acquire by this
process every shade of gold-colour, with a metallic lustre; those of
copper the different shades of red and flame-colour; those of iron
and steel become of a blue or violet; and those of tin and bismuth
appear of a white or bluish-white colour. The dust, tinged in this
manner, is afterwards put through a flatting-mill, which consists of
two rollers of the hardest steel, like those used by gold and silver
wire-drawers, but for the greater convenience a funnel is placed over
them[1148]. I have in my possession samples of all the above kinds,
which have an exceedingly beautiful appearance. This metallic dust is
affixed so strongly to paper by means of a cement, that it is almost
impossible to detach it without tearing the paper, as is the case with
the paper-hangings procured from Aachen. In French, such paper is
called _papier avec paillettes_. The lustre of it is so durable that
it continues unaltered even on the walls of sitting-apartments. The
metallic dust however has a considerable weight, which may undoubtedly
injure the paper.
This inconvenience may have induced artists to employ, instead of
metallic dust, that silver-coloured mica, which has been long used in
the like manner. So early as the seventeenth century the miners at
Reichenstein in Silesia collected and sold for that purpose various
kinds of mica, even the black, which acquires a gold-colour by being
exposed to a strong heat[1149]. The nuns of Reichenstein ornamented
with it the images which they made, as the nuns in France and other
catholic countries ornamented their _agni Dei_, by strewing over them
a shining kind of talc[1150]. The silver-coloured mica however has not
such a bright metallic lustre as metallic dust, but it nevertheless
has a pleasing effect when strewed upon a white painted ground, and
its light thin spangles or scales retain their brightness and adhere
to the paper as long as it lasts. At present I am acquainted with no
printed information respecting the method of laying on metallic dust
and mica, nor do I know where artists procure the latter, which in
many countries is indeed not scarce. I shall here observe, that I once
saw at Petersburg a kind of Chinese paper, which appeared all over to
have a silver-coloured lustre without being covered with any metallic
substance, and which was exceedingly soft and pliable. It bore a great
resemblance to paper which has been rubbed over with dry acid of borax.
I conjecture that its surface was covered with a soft kind of talc,
pounded extremely fine; but as I have none of it in my possession at
present, I can give no further account of it.
[The manufacture of this important and elegant substitute for the
ancient “hangings” of tapestry has undergone a gradual succession
of improvements, and has now reached a high state of beauty and
perfection. The patterns on these papers are sometimes produced by
stencil plates, but more commonly by blocks, each colour being laid
on by a separate block cut in wood or metal upon a plain or tinted
ground. The patterns are sometimes printed in varnish or size, and
gilt or copper-leaf applied; or bisulphuret of tin is dusted over so
as to adhere to the pattern; and in what are called _flock-papers_,
dyed wools mixed into powder are similarly applied. Powdered steatite
or French chalk is used to produce the peculiar gloss known under the
name of _satin_. Striped papers are sometimes made by passing the paper
rapidly under a trough, which has parallel slits in its bottom through
which the colour is delivered; and a number of other very ingenious
and beautiful contrivances have lately been applied in this important
branch of art. The invention of the paper-machine, by which any length
of paper may be obtained, effected a great change in paper-hangings,
which could formerly only be printed upon separate sheets, and were
much more inconvenient to print as well as to apply to the walls[1151].]