It was inevitable that Papillon and Jackson should clash. The Frenchman's 

 notion of woodcutting was influenced, as we have seen, by copper plate engraving; 

 he wanted, by incredible minuteness of cutting, to achieve approximately the same 

 results. This was in keeping with the delicate French rocaille tradition on which 

 Papillon was nurtured; to him any other contemporary style of book decoration 

 was evidence of bad taste. Jackson, on his part, felt that this approach violated the 

 essentially broad, vigorous nature of the woodcut and, in addition, made excessive 

 demands on the printer. Since this impoverished beginner, and an Englishman at 

 that, refused to take his earnest advice or to fall into the prevailing style, Papillon 



Headpiece by J. M. Papillon for his Traite historique et pratique 

 de la gravure en bois, Paris, 1766, vol. 3. This is an example of Pa- 

 pillon's minute style, against vv'hich Jackson rebelled. Actual size. 



was enraged. After all, Jackson was working as an employee. But Papillon was not 

 entirely blind. In a number of places in the Traite he made reference to other 

 woodcutters who were working in Jackson's style, and he recorded some of the 

 works the Englishman illustrated during his five years in Paris. 



Jackson's blossoming out as a maker of wallpaper after his return to England 

 and his brash claims in this connection in the Essay, must also have irked Papillon, 

 who knew the field as an expert; his father in 1688 had set up the first large print- 

 ing house in France for wall hangings, and after his death in 1723 Papillon had 

 inherited it. In 1740, he sold the business to the widow Langlois, but he had run 

 the shop during Jackson's residence in Paris and his former employee no doubt 

 had learned a great deal by observing its operation. Yet here more than twenty 

 years later was the upstart Englishman again, venturing into wallpaper manufac- 

 turing with an air of moral superiority, attacking all other products as unworthy. 

 Jackson's ridiculing of the Chinese style must have been particularly galling since 



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