Old Time Wall Papers Part 4

"We surmise that Boston and its harbor is the subject; here are s.h.i.+ps, horses and coaches, trees and road-ways, running like garlands which subdivide the s.p.a.ces, many houses in a row, and finally a row of docile sheep that for a century have fed in unfading serenity at their cribs in inexplicable proximity to the base of the dwellings. All is fair in love, war, and decoration.

"The trees are green, the houses red, the sheep white, and the water blue; all is in good tone, and I wish that it had been on my mantel s.p.a.ce that this renegade painter had put his spirited effort."

A friend told me of her vivid recollection of some frescoed portraits on the walls of the former home of a prominent Quaker in Minneapolis.

Her letter to a cousin who attends the Friends' Meeting there brought this answer: "I had quite a talk with Uncle Junius at Meeting about his old house. Unfortunately, the walls were ruined in a fire a few years ago and no photograph had ever been taken of them. The portraits thee asked about were in a bed-room. William Penn, with a roll in his hand (the treaty, I suppose) was on one side of a window and Elizabeth Fry on the other. These two were life size.

"Then, (tell it not in Gath!) there was a billiard room. Here Mercury, Terpsich.o.r.e and other gay creatures tripped around the frieze, and there was also a picture of the temple in Pompeii and Minerva with her owl. In the sitting room on one side of the bay window was a fisher-woman mending her net, with a lot of fish about her. On the other side of the window another woman was feeding a deer.

"On the dining-room walls a number of rabbits were playing under a big fern and there was a whole family of prairie chickens, and ducks were flying about the ceiling. Uncle Junius said, 'It cost me a thousand dollars to have those things frescoed on, and they looked nice, too!' I suppose when the Quaker preachers came to visit he locked up the billiard room and put them in the room with William Penn and Elizabeth Fry. He seemed rather mortified about the other and said it would not do to go into a Quaker book, at all!"

This house was built about the middle of the nineteenth century, when Minneapolis was a new town; but it undoubtedly shows the influence of the old New England which was the genial Friend's boyhood home. The scores of Quaker preachers and other visiting Friends who accepted the overflowing hospitality of this cheerfully frescoed house seem to have had none of the scruples of Ma.s.sachusetts Friends of an earlier date. A lady sent me a strip of hideously ugly paper in squares, the colors dark brown and old gold. She wrote me that this paper was on the walls of the parlor of their house in Hampton, Ma.s.sachusetts. The family were Friends; and once, when the Quarterly Meeting was held there, some of the Friends refused to enter their house, as the paper was too gay and worldly. And it actually had to be taken off!

After the clay paint and the hand painting came the small sheets or squares of paper, and again I was fortunate in finding in my adopted farm-house, in the "best room" upstairs, a snuff-brown paper of the "wine-gla.s.s" pattern that was made before paper was imported in rolls, and was pasted on the walls in small squares. The border looks as much like a row of brown cats sitting down as anything else. You know the family used to be called together to help cut out a border when a room was to be papered; but very few of these home-made borders are now to be found.

I was told of a lady in Philadelphia who grew weary of an old and sentimental pattern in her chamber, put on in small pieces and in poor condition, and begged her husband to let her take it off. But he was attached to the room, paper and all, and begged on his part that it might remain. She next visited queer old stores where papers were kept, and in one of them, in a loft, found enough of this very pattern, with Cupids and doves and roses, to re-paper almost the entire room. And it was decidedly difficult so to match the two sides of the face of the little G.o.d of Love as to preserve his natural expression of roguishness and merry consciousness of his power.

It may interest some to learn just what drew my attention to the subject of old-time wall-papers. One, and an especially fine specimen, is a.s.sociated with my earliest memories, and will be remembered to my latest day. For, although a native of New Hamps.h.i.+re, I was born at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, and there was a merry dance to the music of mandolin and tambourine round the tomb of Virgil on my natal morn. Some men were fis.h.i.+ng, others bringing in the catch; farther on was a picnic party, sentimental youths and maidens eating comfits and dainties to the tender notes of a flute. And old Vesuvius was smoking violently. All this because the room in which I made my debut was adorned with a landscape or scenic paper.

Fortunately, this still remains on the walls, little altered or defaced by the wear of years. When admiring it lately, the suggestion came to me to have this paper photographed at once, and also that of the Seasons in the next house; these were certainly too rare and interesting to be lost. It is singular that the only papers of this sort I had ever seen were in neighboring homes of two professors at Dartmouth College, and remarkable that neither has been removed: now I find many duplicates of these papers.

What a keen delight it was to me as a child to be allowed to go to Professor Young's, to admire his white hair, which I called "pitty white fedders," and to gaze at the imposing sleighing party just above the mantel, and at the hunters or the haymakers in the fields! A good collection is always interesting, from choice old copies of first editions to lanterns, cow-bells, scissors, cup-plates, fans or b.u.t.tons; and I mourn that I did not think of securing photographs of quaint and antique papers years ago, for most of them have now disappeared.

Showing the beginnings of my collection to an amateur photographer, he was intensely interested, and said: "Why, I can get you a set as good as these! The house has been owned by one family for eighty-five years, and the paper was put on as long ago as that." And certainly his addition is most interesting. The scenes in one are French. You see a little play going on, such as we have been told in a recent magazine article they still have in France--a street show in which a whole family often take part. They appear as accompaniment to a fair or festival. The hole for the stove-pipe, penetrating the foliage, has a ludicrous effect, contrasting in abrupt fas.h.i.+on--the old and the new, the imposing and the practical.

This enthusiastic friend next visited Medfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, where he heard there were several such papers, only to be told that they had just been sc.r.a.ped off and the rooms modernized.

Hearing of a fine example of scenic paper in the old Perry House at Keene, New Hamps.h.i.+re, I wrote immediately, lest that, too, should be removed, and through the kindness of absolute strangers can show an excellent representation of the Olympic games, dances, Greeks placing wreaths upon altars, and other scenes from Grecian life, well executed.

These are grand conceptions; I hope they may never be vandalized by chisel and paste, but be allowed to remain as long as that historic house stands. They are beautifully preserved.

_PLATE V._

A detail of the preceding paper. Though well designed, this is not a beautifully colored or very well printed paper; the color scheme is carried out in fourteen printings.

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A brief magazine article on my new enthusiasm, ill.u.s.trated with photographs of papers I knew about, was received with surprising interest. My mail-bag came crowded, and I was well-nigh "snowed in," as De Quincy put it, by fascinating letters from men and women who rejoiced in owning papers like those of my ill.u.s.trations, or had heard of others equally fine and equally venerable, and with cordial invitations to journey here and there to visit unknown friends and study their wall-papers, the coloring good as new after a hundred years or more. It was in this unexpected and most agreeable way that I heard of treasures at Windsor, Vermont; Claremont, New Hamps.h.i.+re; Taunton, Ma.s.sachusetts, and quaint old Nantucket, and was informed that my special paper, with the scenes from the Bay of Naples (represented so faithfully that one familiar with the Italian reality could easily recognize every one) was a most popular subject with the early purchaser and was still on the walls of a dozen or more sitting-rooms.

The Reverend Wallace Nutting, of Providence, whose fame as an artistic photographer is widespread, sent me a picture of a parlor in St.

Johnsbury, Vermont, where he found this paper. Three women dressed in old-fas.h.i.+oned style, even to the arrangement of their hair, are seated at table, enjoying a cup of tea. An old tabby is napping cosily in a soft-cus.h.i.+oned chair. And above, on the right, Vesuvius is pouring forth the usual volumes of smoke. A fine old mahogany side-board, at the foot of the volcano, decorated with decanters and gla.s.ses large and small, presents an inviting picture.

The house at Hillsboro Bridge, New Hamps.h.i.+re, where Ex-Governor Benjamin Pierce lived for years, and where his son, Franklin Pierce, pa.s.sed a happy boyhood, has this paper, and several similar letters show how generally it was admired. Mrs. Lawrence, of Boston, wrote:

"I send by this mail a package of pictures, taken by my daughter, of the Italian wall-paper on her grandfather's old home in Exeter, N. H. The house is now owned by the Academy and used as a dormitory. The views which I enclose have never been published. We have two or three remarkable specimens of wall-paper made in India a hundred and fifty years ago; the strips are hanging on the wall, nailed up."

The Italian paper proved to be my old friend Vesuvius and his bay. An Exeter professor also wrote describing the same paper and adding translations of the Greek inscriptions on the monuments.

Friends would often write of such a wonderful specimen at some town or village. I would write to the address given and be told of this Bay of Naples paper again. They were all brought over and put on at about the same time.

One of the oldest houses in Windsor, Vermont, still has a charming parlor paper, with landscape and water, boats, castles, ruins and picturesque figures, which was imported and hung about 1810. This house was built by the Honorable Edward R. Campbell, a prominent Vermonter in his day, and here were entertained President Monroe and other notable visitors. Later the Campbell house was occupied for some years by Salmon P. Chase. It is now the home of the Sabin family.

A Boston antique dealer wrote me: "In an article of yours in _The House Beautiful_, you have a photograph of the paper of the old Perry House, Keene, N. H. We want to say that we have in our possession here at this store, strung up temporarily, a paper with the same subject. It forms a complete scene, there being thirty pieces in attractive old shades of brown. We bought this from a family in Boston some little time ago, and it is said to have been made in France for a planter in New Orleans in or before 1800. We feel we would be excused in saying that this is the most interesting lot of any such thing in existence. It has been handed down from family to family, and they, apparently, have shown it, because the bottom ends of some of the sheets are considerably worn from handling. You understand this paper was never hung on the wall and it is just as it was originally made." He fairly raves over the beautiful rich browns and cream and "O! such trees!"

To my inquiry whether his price for this paper was really two thousand dollars, as I had heard, he replied, "We would be very sorry to sell the paper for two thousand dollars, for it is worth five thousand."

An artist who called to examine the paper is equally enthusiastic. He writes: "I was greatly impressed by the remarkably fine execution of the entire work. Doubtless it was printed by hand with engraved blocks. A large per cent of the shading, especially the faces of the charming figures, was surely done by hand, and all is the production of a superior artist. There are several sections, each perhaps three feet square, of such fine design, grouping, finish and execution of light and shade, as to make them easily samples of such exquisite nicety and comprehensive artistic work as to warrant their being framed.

"The facial expression of each of the many figures is so true that it indicates the feelings and almost the thoughts of the person represented; there is remarkable individuality and surprising animation.

I was forcibly struck with the inimitable perspective of the buildings and the entire landscape with which they are a.s.sociated. Practically speaking, the buildings are of very perfect Roman architecture; there is, however, a pleasing venture manifested, where the artist has presented a little of the Greek work with here and there a trace of Egyptian, and perhaps of the Byzantine. These make a pleasing anachronism, such as Shakespeare at times introduced into his plays: a venture defended by Dr. Samuel Johnson, as well as other distinguished critics. The trees are done with an almost photographic truth and exactness. After a somewhat extended and critical examination of things of this kind in various parts of Europe, I do not hesitate to say that I have seen nothing of the kind that excels the work you have. What is quite remarkable about it, and more than all exhibits its truth to nature, it seems to challenge decision whether it shows to best advantage in strong daylight or twilight, by artificial light or that of the sun; an effect always present in nature, but not often well produced on paper or canvas. The successful venture to use so light a groundwork was much like that of Rubens, where he used a white sheet in his great painting, 'The Descent from the Cross.'"

Since the above description was written, this incomparable paper has pa.s.sed into the hands of Mrs. Franklin R. Webber, 2nd, of Boston, who will either frame it, or in some other way preserve it as perfectly as possible.

The remarkable paper shown in Plate XLI and the three following plates were sent me by Miss Janet A. Lathrop of Stockport-on-Hudson, New York.

It is certainly one of the finest of the scenic papers still in existence. The scene is oriental, the costumes seeming both Turkish and Chinese. Temples and paG.o.das, a procession, a barge on the river and a gathering in a tea-house follow in succession about the room. All are printed by hand on rice paper, in gray tones. The paper is browned with age, but was cleaned and restored about a year ago and is exceedingly well preserved.

The house in which this paper is hung was built by Captain Seth Macy, a retired sea-captain, in 1815. The paper was put on in 1820. Captain Seth seems to have used up all his fortune in building his house, and in a few years he was forced to sell it. The name of "Seth's Folly" still clings to the place. In 1853 Miss Lathrop's father bought the house, and it has ever since been occupied by his family. By a singular coincidence, Mrs. Lathrop recognized the paper as the same as some on the old house at Albany in which she was born. Repeated inquiries have failed to locate any other example in America, and photographs have been submitted without avail to both domestic and foreign experts for identification. In the early seventies Miss Lathrop chanced to visit a hunting-lodge belonging to the King of Saxony at Moritzburg, near Dresden, and in the "Chinese room" she found a tapestry or paper exactly similar, from which the paper on her own walls may have been copied.

The two papers just described would seem to be the finest examples of continuous scenic papers still extant. I learn as this book goes to press that Mrs. Jack Gardner, of Boston, has a remarkable old geographical paper, in which the three old-world continents are represented. I have been fortunate enough to secure, through the courtesy of Mrs. Russell Jarvis, a picture of the paper in her parlor at Claremont, New Hamps.h.i.+re. The Jarvis family have occupied the house since 1797. This is not a landscape, but consists of small pastoral scenes, placed at intervals and repeated regularly. The design is brown on a cream ground. It has a dado and a frieze in dark blue. It is hand made and all printed by hand, in squares of about eighteen inches, matched carefully. Mrs. Jarvis writes: "I had no idea that the photographer would take in so much each side of the corner, or I should have arranged the furniture differently. The picture I did not suppose was to appear is one of great interest and value. It is supposed to be a Rubens, and has hung there for over a hundred years. It was bought in 1791 in Boston, of a French gentleman from San Domingo, who, on the night of the insurrection there, escaped, saving but little else of his vast possessions. It had evidently been hastily cut from the frame. It represents the presentation of the head of the younger Cyrus to Tomyris, Queen of the Scythians. The coloring is fine, the figures very beautiful, and the satin and ermine of the Queen's dress extremely rich.

If you look closely, you will see a sword lying on the piano. This is the one Sir William Pepperell was knighted with by King George the Second, in 1745, because of the Battle of Louisburg, and was given my husband's father by Sir William's grand-daughter, I believe."

You see how one photograph brings to you many valuable bits of information apart from the paper sought.

This letter, for example, with its accompanying photograph (see Plate XXII) leads one to the study of history, art, and literature. The subject of the picture, aside from its supposed origin, is of interest.

The Scythians were Aryans much mixed with Mongol blood; they disappear from history about 100 B. C. Cyrus the younger, after subduing the eastern parts of Asia, was defeated by Tomyris, Queen of the Ma.s.sagetae in Scythia. Tomyris cut off his head and threw it into a vessel filled with human blood, saying, as she did so, "There, drink thy fill."

Dante refers to this incident in his _Purgatory_, xii; and Sackville, in his _Mirrour for Magistrates_, 1587, says:

Consyder Cyrus-- He whose huge power no man might overthrowe, Tomyris Queen, with great despite hath slowe, His head dismembered from his mangled corpse Herself she cast into a vessel fraught With clotted blood of them that felt her force, And with these words a just reward she taught: "Drynke now thy fyll of thy desired draught."

Here seems to be the place to speak more fully of the small scenes placed regularly at intervals. There is a great variety of pretty medallion pictures of this sort, as, alternating figures of a shepherdess with her crook reclining on a bank near a flock of sheep, and a boy studying at a desk, with a teacher standing near by.

Mr. Frank B. Sanborn writes: "The oldest paper I ever saw was in the parlor of President Weare, of Hampton Falls--a simple hunting scene, with three compartments; a deer above, a dog below, and a hunter with his horn below that. It was put on in 1737, when the house was built, and, I think, is there still. Colonel Whiting's house had a more elaborate and extensive scene--what the French called 'Montagnes Russe'--artificial hills in a park, for sliding down, toboggan fas.h.i.+on, and a score of people enjoying them or looking on."

A good authority a.s.serts that rolls of paper did not appear in this country until 1790, so that all these now mentioned must have been imported in square sheets. Notice the step forward--from white walls, through a clay wash, to hand painting, stencilling, small imported sheets, and, at last, to rolls of paper.

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_PLATE VI._

Fragment of the famous old racing paper from the Timothy Dexter house. This is too broken and stained to admit of the reproduction of its original colors--blue sky, gray clouds, green turf, brown horses and black, and jockeys in various colors. The scene here given fills the width of the paper, about eighteen inches.

[Ill.u.s.tration]