ment, we know that no scenic papers can be dated before the Ricci prints, or before 

 Jackson's wallpaper venture. Oman^° comments: 



The use of wall-paper to imitate large architectural designs dates, as we have seen, 

 from the days of }. B. Jackson. During the remainder of the century this style was 

 used almost exclusively for decoration of the halls and staircases of great houses. 



These papers covered rooms with landscape panoramas or with landscapes in 

 Rococo scroll frames, relieved by decorative panels with busts, statuettes, and floral 

 ornaments. As in preceding work, they were usually painted in opaque water 

 colors. Most of the landscapes were loose transcriptions of designs by Pannini, 

 Vernet, Lancret and other painters of architectural, scenic, and pastoral subjects. 

 The treatment was generalized and superficial, the touch light and detached. 



In this approach to wallpaper we see the basic ideas of Jackson, but with more 

 emphasis on charm and elegance. Ironically, as years passed and original sources 

 grew obscure, it became the tendency to attribute scenic papers in great houses to 

 Jackson." If he was a failure as a pioneer in the field, he remained its most highly 

 prized legend. 



The Essay continued with a criticism of the current taste in wallpaper. Jack- 

 son enlarged on the lack of discrimination of persons who would prefer popular 

 papers to his. 



It seems, also, as if there was great Reason to suspect wherever one sees such 

 preposterous Furniture, that the Taste in Literature of that Person who directed it 

 was very deficient, and that it would prefer Tom D'Urfy to Shaf^espear, Sir Richard 

 Blackjnore to Milton, Tate to Homer, an Anagrammatist to Virgil, Horace, or 

 any other Writer of true Wit, either Ancient or Modern. 



He added that his prints, made in oil colors, would be permanent "whereas in that 

 done with Water-Colours, in the common Way, Six Months makes a very visible 

 Alteration in all diat preposterous Glare, which makes its whole Merit. . . ." 



The Essay has eight plates, four of ancient statues in chiaroscuro and four 

 of plants, animals, and buildings, in probably six colors. They were hastily done and 

 no doubt had a rather fresh charm when published, but unfortunately the oil in 

 the pigments was inferior, and every print in the book has darkened and yellowed 



^ Oman, 1929, p. 33. 



■*" An excellent description of the papers of this type imported to America is given by Edna Donnell 

 in Metropolitan Museum Studies 1932, vol. 4, pp. 77-108. 



47 



