Old Time Wall Papers Part 3

_PLATE IV._

Scenes from the life of an eighteenth century gallant form this unusual old French paper--a gaming quarrel, a duel, an elopement and other edifying episodes, framed in rococo scrolls.

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This roused a furious mob, and everything was ruined, and he never recovered from the undeserved disaster.

Carlyle closes his description of the fatal riot with these words: "What a sight! A street choked up with lumber, tumult and endless press of men. A Paper-Warehouse eviscerated by axe and fire; mad din of revolt; musket volleys responded to by yells, by miscellaneous missiles, by tiles raining from roof and window, tiles, execrations and slain men!--There is an enc.u.mbered street, four or five hundred dead men; unfortunate Revillon has found shelter in the Bastille."

England advanced in the art of paper-making during the time the French were planning the Revolution, and English velvet papers became the fas.h.i.+on. In 1754 Mme. de Pompadour had her wardrobe and the pa.s.sage that led to her apartments hung with English paper. In 1758 she had the bath-room of the Chateau de Champs papered with it, and others followed her example.

But in 1765 the importation of English papers--engraved, figured, printed, painted to imitate damasks, chintzes, tapestries, and so on--was checked by a heavy tax. So at this time papers were a precious and costly possession. They were sold when the owner was leaving a room, as the following advertis.e.m.e.nts will show:

Dec. 17, 1782. "To-let; large room, with mirror over the fire-place and paper which the owner is willing to sell."

Feb. 5, 1784. "To-let; Main body of a house, on the front, with two apartments, one having mirrors, woodwork and papers, which will be sold."

When the owner of the paper did not succeed in selling it, he took it away, as it was stretched on cloth or mounted on frames. These papers were then often offered for sale in the Parisian papers; we find advertised in 1764, "The paperhangers for a room, painted green and white"; November 26, 1766, "A hanging of paper lined with muslin, valued at 12 Livres"; February 13, 1777, "For sale; by M. Hubert, a hanging of crimson velvet paper, pasted on cloth, with gilt mouldings"; April 17, 1783, "38 yards of apple-green paper imitating damask, 24 livres, cost 38."

By 1782, the use of wall-papers became so general that, from that time on, the phrase "decorated with wall-paper" frequently occurs in advertis.e.m.e.nts of luxurious apartments to let. Before this time, mention had commonly been made, in the same manner, of the woodwork and mirrors.

October 12, 1782, the _Journal general de France_ advertised: "To let; two houses, decorated with mirrors and papers, one with stable for five horses, 2 carriage-houses, large garden and well, the other with three master's apartments, stable for 12 horses, 4 carriage-houses, etc." Oct.

28, 1782, "To let; pretty apartment of five rooms, second floor front, with mirrors, papers, etc." Feb. 24, 1783, "To let; rue Montmartre, first floor apartment, with antechamber; drawing-room, papered in crimson, with mouldings; and two bed-rooms, one papered to match, with two cellars."

Mme. du Bocage, in her _Letters on England, Holland, and Italy_, (1750) gives an account of Mrs. Montague's breakfast parties: "In the morning, breakfasts agreeably bring together the people of the country and strangers, in a closet lined with painted paper of Pekin, and furnished with the choicest movables of China.

"Mrs. Montague added, to her already large house, 'the room of the Cupidons', which was painted with roses and jasmine, intertwined with Cupids, and the 'feather room,' which was enriched with hangings made from the plumage of almost every bird."

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III

EARLIEST WALL PAPERS IN AMERICA

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III

EARLIEST WALL PAPERS IN AMERICA

Wall-papers of expensive styles and artistic variety were brought to America as early as 1735. Before that time, and after, clay paint was used by thrifty housewives to freshen and clean the sooty walls and ceilings, soon blackened by the big open fires. This was prepared simply by mixing with water the yellow-gray clay from the nearest claybank.

In Philadelphia, walls were whitewashed until about 1745, when we find one Charles Hargrave advertising wall-paper, and a little later Peter Fleeson manufacturing paper-hangings and papir-mache mouldings at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets.

Those who could not afford to import papers painted their walls, either in one color or stencilled in a simple pattern, or panelled, in imitation of French papers; each panel with its own picture, large or small. These attempts at decoration ranged with the taste and skill of the artist, from fruit and floral designs and patterns copied from India prints and imported china, to more elaborate and often horrible presentments of landscapes and "waterscapes." The chimney breast, or projecting wall forming the chimney, received especial attention.

In my own farm-house, which was built in Colonial style in 1801 (with, as tradition says, forty pumpkin pies and two barrels of hard cider to cheer on the a.s.sisting neighbors), one of my first tasks was to have five or six layers of cheap papers dampened and sc.r.a.ped off. And, to my surprise, we found hand-painted flowers, true to nature and still extremely pretty, though of course scratched and faded after such heroic treatment--fuchsias in one room, carnation pinks in another, and in the front hall honeysuckle blossoms, so defaced that they suggested some of the animal tracks that Mr. Thompson-Seton copies in his books. What an amount of painstaking and skilled work all that implied! That was a general fas.h.i.+on at the time the house was built, and many such hand-paintings have been reported to me.

Mrs. Alice Morse Earle mentions one tavern parlor which she has seen where the walls were painted with scenes from a tropical forest. On either side of the fire-place sprang a tall palm tree. Coiled serpents, crouching tigers, monkeys, a white elephant, and every form of vivid-colored bird and insect crowded each other on the walls. And she speaks of a wall-paper on the parlor of the Was.h.i.+ngton Tavern at Westfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, which gives the lively scenes of a fox chase.

Near Conway, New Hamps.h.i.+re, there is a cottage where a room can still be seen that has been most elaborately adorned by a local artist. The mountains are evenly scalloped and uniformly green, the sky evenly blue all the way round. The trees resemble those to be found in a Noah's Ark, and the birds on them are certainly one-fourth as large as the trees.

The painted landscapes are almost impossible to find, but I hear of one room, the walls of which are painted with small landscapes, water scenes, various animals, and trees. A sympathetic explorer has discovered another in similar style at Westwood, Ma.s.sachusetts, near Dedham.

In the old "Johnson House," Charlestown, New Hamps.h.i.+re, the door remains on the premises, with hatchet marks still visible, through which the Indians, "horribly fixed for war," dashed in pursuit of their trembling victims. The hinges of hoop iron and latch with stringhole beneath are intact. A portion of its surface is still covered with the paint of the early settlers, made of red earth mixed with skimmed milk.

A friend wrote me that her grandmother said that "before wall-paper became generally used, many well-to-do persons had the walls of the parlor--or keeping room as it was sometimes called--and spare room tinted a soft Colonial yellow, with triangles, wheels or stars in dull green and black for a frieze; and above the chair-rail a narrower frieze, same pattern or similar, done in stencilling, often by home talent.

"My great aunt used to tell me that when company was expected, the edge of the floor in the 'keeping room' was first sanded, then the most artistic one of the family spread it evenly with a birch broom, and with sticks made these same wheels and scallops around the edge of the room, and the never-missing pitcher of asparagus completed the adornment."

On the panels of a mantel, she remembers, an artist came from New Boston and painted a landscape, while in the sitting-room, across the hall, a huge vase of gayly tinted flowers was painted over the mantel.

On the mantel of another house was painted the Boston ma.s.sacre. This was in existence only a few years ago.

Later came the black and white imitation of marble for the halls and stairs, and yellow floors with the stencil border in black. This was an imitation of the French. In Balzac's _Pierrette_ is described a pretentious provincial house, of which the stairway was "painted throughout in imitation of yellow-veined black marble."

Madeleine Gale Wynne, in _The House Beautiful_, wrote most delightfully about "Clay, Paint and other Wall Furnis.h.i.+ngs," and I quote her vivid descriptions of the wall paintings she saw in Deerfield and Bernardston, Ma.s.sachusetts.

"These wall paintings, like the embroideries, were derived from the India prints or the Chinese and other crockery. Whether the dweller in this far-off New England atmosphere was conscious of it or not, he was indebted to many ancient peoples for the way in which he intertwined his spray, or translated his flower and bud into a decorative whole.

"Odd and amusing are many of the efforts, and they have often taken on a certain individuality that makes a curious combination with the Eastern strain.

"An old house in Deerfield has the remains of an interesting wall, and a part.i.tion of another done in blue, with an oval picture painted over the mantel-tree. The picture was of a blue s.h.i.+p in full sail on a blue ocean.

"The other wall was in a small entry-way, and had an abundance of semi-conventionalized flowers done in red, black, and browns. The design was evidently painted by hand, and evolved as the painter worked. A border ran round each doorway, while the wall s.p.a.ces were treated separately and with individual care; the effect was pleasing, though crude. Tulips and roses were the theme.

"This house had at one time been used as a tavern, and there is a tradition that this was one of several public houses that were decorated by a man who wandered through the Connecticut Valley during Revolutionary times, paying his way by these flights of genius done in oil. Tradition also has it that this man had a past; whether he was a spy or a deserter from the British lines, or some other fly-from-justice body, was a matter of speculation never determined. He disappeared as he came, but behind him he left many walls decorated with fruit and flowers, less perishable than himself.

"We find his handiwork not only in Deerfield, but in Bernardston. There are rumors that there was also a wall of his painting in a tavern which stood on the border line between Ma.s.sachusetts and Vermont. In Connecticut, too, there are houses that have traces of his work. In Bernardston, Ma.s.sachusetts, there is still to be seen a room containing a very perfect specimen of wall painting which is attributed to him.

This work may be of later date, but no one knows its origin.

"This design is very pleasing, not only because of its antiquity and a.s.sociations, but because in its own way it is a beautiful and fitting decoration. The color tones are full, the figures quaintly systematic and showing much invention.

"The body of the wall is of a deep cream, divided into diamond s.p.a.ces by a stencilled design, consisting of four members in diamond shape; the next diamond is made up of a different set of diamonds, there being four sets in all; these are repeated symmetrically, so that a larger diamond is produced. Strawberries, tulips, and two other flowers of less p.r.o.nounced individuality are used, and the colors are deliciously harmonized in spite of their being in natural tints, and bright at that.

Now, this might have been very ugly--most unpleasing; on the contrary, it is really beautiful.

"There is both dado and frieze, the latter being an elaborate festoon, the former less good, made up of straggling palms and other ill considered and constructed growths. One suspects the dado to be an out-and-out steal from some chintz, while the tulips and strawberries bear the stamp of personal intimacy.

"The culminating act of imagination and art was arrived at on the chimney-breast decoration; there indeed do we strike the high-water mark of the decorator; he was not hampered either by perspective or probability.