364 WALL PAPERS 



one eventually might tire of seeing the same youth piping to 

 the same old man, and the same lady for ever playing the same 

 organ without looking at her notes. 



But a more radical change in wall decoration was to come 

 in the shape of wall papers. The early history of this method 

 of adorning rooms has not been fully explored, but it seems 

 clear that already in the seventeenth century sheets of paper 

 covered with stencilled patterns had been pasted on to walls, 

 or perhaps on to the panels into which they were divided. 

 This was a laborious and by no means cheap process, but it 

 contained the germ of the procedure which is so widely adopted 

 to-day. Another and even more effective step was taken when 

 Chinese papers were introduced (Fig. 290). These papers con- 

 sisted of rolls, each printed with a portion of a large design, 

 which required some five or six pieces to complete it. It was 

 probably of such sets that the vivacious Lady Mary Wortley 

 Montague, most celebrated of blue stockings, wrote to her 

 daughter from Louvere, in 1749, to say, " I have heard the fame 

 of paper hangings, and had some thoughts of sending for a 

 suite, but was informed that they were as dear as damask is 

 here, which put an end to my curiosity." In some cases 

 curiosity outweighed thriftiness, and the suites still remain in 

 a few old houses ; here and there some of the original rolls 

 still exist, rolls which for some reason or other were not 

 used, and which have luckily escaped destruction. Chinese 

 papers became fashionable, and it is not difficult to imagine 

 the process of evolution from rolls each bearing part of a 

 large design either of trees and flowers, or of a landscape 

 or a figure subject, after the manner of tapestry to other 

 rolls all printed alike and forming a continuous pattern, 

 with the parts duly repeated, which should cover the whole 

 walls with decoration of a sort. The advantages of the new 

 method were obvious : it was cheap ; and although at first the 

 paper was applied to canvas nailed to battens on the wall, yet 

 eventually it was placed on the wall itself, and thus did away 

 with the spaces between the walls and the panelling or tapestry, 

 where dirt or spiders or more noxious insects could harbour ; 

 rough surfaces were rendered smooth, joints between wood 

 frames and stone or brick walls were filled with plaster, and 

 draughts were lessened. Most of these advantages were obtained 

 by plastered walls ornamented with panels, but plain surfaces 



