Old Time Wall Papers: An Account of the Pictorial Papers on Our Forefathers' Walls with a Study of the Historical Development of Wall Paper Making and DecorationSanborn, Kate
History
Old Time Wall Papers: An Account of the Pictorial Papers on Our Forefathers' Walls with a Study of the Historical Development of Wall Paper Making and Decoration
Sanborn, Kate
Interior decoration -- History; Wallpaper
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 buttons;
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 fashion--the old and the new, the imposing and the
practical.
This enthusiastic friend next visited Medfield, Massachusetts, where he
heard there were several such papers, only to be told that they had just
been scraped off and the rooms modernized.
Hearing of a fine example of scenic paper in the old Perry House at
Keene, New Hampshire, 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.
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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